Public Service Announcement
by Guttersnipe
Summary: Upon his return, Sasuke is forced to do community service with Gai and Lee, who have evil, evil plans for the avenger. They plan on making him the third Green Beast. Can Sasuke survive the Green Spandex Jumpsuit? Crack! minor Sasuke X Sakura
1. A Fate Worse Than Death

Public Service Announcement

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. That copyright belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

**Chapter 1: A Fate Worse Than Death**

There was a deafening hush in the great hall as the Lady Hokage looked down at the kneeling prisoner before her. Everyone had their own idea about what she was about to say, or about what they _thought_ she should say. There was a strong support for both extremes of the topic at hand. However, none but the Hokage herself knew just where the final judgement would lay within those boundaries.

In a few moments, all would know, including the former missing nin---turned _captured_ missing nin---kneeling before Konoha's leader.

Tsunade cast a stern glare at the murmuring crowd, silently demanding that they shut up, or _else_. Not all took the hint, which earned them a hefty wallop to the side of their skulls by a few scrolls traveling Mach Three, direct from the Hokage's hands. Oooh, her hospital would have patients after this! Yay! She had to keep her medic-nins on their toes, after all.

Once the silence she sought was given, the Lady Hokage looked down at the open scroll before her, rereading its contents carefully. The aggravation of the spectators at having quieted down only to have their curiosity unsatisfied did not go unnoticed by her. Indeed, Tsunade had opted to remain silent just to tick them off. Hey! They had been ignoring her before, yapping away, making her five alarm hangover mutate into a seismic catastrophe of the brain.

_Soon, sake. Soon…_

Deciding that she had tortured the ninjas---who had gathered in the great hall for this very memorable occasion---enough, the Godaime quietly cleared her throat (opting for manners over her usual vulgarity; after all, this was an _official _public humiliation---or, public _sentencing_, rather; she had a façade of dignity to maintain), and raised her gaze to the young man on the floor before her.

Levelling a stern gaze at the prisoner---complete with a brow furrow, narrowed eyes, and hands-as-a-chin-rest---the Hokage began the proceedings.

"Uchiha Sasuke," Tsunade spoke strongly, ensuring _everyone _could hear absolutely _everything_ she was about to say.

Said person merely maintained his inexpressive face, looking every bit like a guy sitting on a park bench watching old people feed ducks while pondering which geriatric would likely die first and by what means. In short, he was the visualization of apathetic.

Seeing this, Tsunade grinned evilly inside. _Oh, we're going to see some movement on that mug of yours today, boy. Just you wait._

The Hokage continued on. "You have been charged with and found guilty of the crime of treason, which is punishable by death." She let the sentence hang for a few moments, noticing some nervous and some excited murmurs coming from the crowd. However the Uchiha before her didn't shift a cell.

_Your smack-bottom is coming brat._

"Do you have anything you wish to say before I read you the final verdict?"

An immediate shake of the head gave the Hokage a negative on her offer.

_Still so composed, eh? I'll see you quivering in agony by the end of the day._

"In that case, I will read you the verdict." Tsunade shifted the open scroll on the large bench before her, glancing over the phrases she already knew by heart, since she penned them herself.

_This is going to be so sweet! I hope Sakura can forgive me, but darn it all if that little brat-faced Uchiha doesn't deserve it!_

"Uchiha Sasuke. Having been found guilty of treason, but with no other criminal acts in evidence, and lacking any inflicted or intended harm to Konoha, you are hereby sentenced to five months of community service, to be followed by a full review of your behaviour during said months to assess your eligibility for having your ninja credentials as a Leaf-nin reinstated. During this time, you will not leave the village, nor will you receive any missions. You are to report to your assigned probation officer once every week. This officer will also arrange your community service activities."

"And who would this probation officer be?" the Uchiha asked, blandly. Could colours be converted into oral form, he would have been spewing greys and beiges with how disinterested he sounded.

The slightest of demon-grins shadowed Tsunade's lips at this. Glee was beginning to bubble up within her usually depressed and thoroughly wasted inner being.

_It's a comin', Uchiha. Oh ho ho, it's a comin'!_

With a control over her inner emotions that only comes from dealing with someone as annoying and moronic as Naruto every day, the Lady Hokage answered. "Maito Gai."

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

A whirlwind of green and neon orange hurled itself at the area between the seated Hokage and the kneeling Uchiha.

Once the swirling debris cleared, an image of utmost horror (to any sane shinobi) was revealed to the mumbling crowd. There, in all his Youthful splendour, stood Maito Gai, "Good Guy" pose already in place, teeth set to go "Ping!" after his greeting.

Once the crowd quieted slightly, Gai began his thoroughly practiced introduction. "I, Maito Gai, shall be the shining light, to guide our wayward Sasuke back to the Way of Youth!" He then raised his already aloft arm higher, reiterating his "Good Guy" pose, and his smile made its long awaited "Ping!" sound.

Every ninja in the room---except Lee, who just mimicked his idol---cringed in undisguised revulsion at the sensei's "Youthful" display.

If Gai noticed, he didn't even flinch. On the contrary, he held his pose for about five seconds longer than normal, like he thought that alone would stoke the fires of Youth within all who had gathered there, and cause them to leap to their feet, shouting, "YOSH! GAI-SENSEI!" and return the "Good Guy" pose to him. That of course (and _thankfully_) didn't happen.

After a few moments of awkward silence (awkward for everyone else, completely normal for Gai), he assumed a less off-putting stance and turned to the prisoner before him.

"Sasuke; student of my eternal rival. I shall put all the Power of Youth that I possess into igniting the Fire of Youth within you once again! Once five months are up, I guarantee you will be blazing fully in the Springtime of Youth!" Gai shouted for all to hear, then gave another "Good Guy" pose just for Sasuke, and flashed his "Ping!"tastic smile.

Sasuke twitched slightly, in the throes of a mild seizure caused by too many flashing smiles and blinding green and orange, and so much shiny hair, and _oh _the thumbs-ups, and…and…it was just _too_ much Gai!

Then he understood what a fate worse than death was.

_Oh_, that old hag was evil. Everyone thought Orochimaru was the bad apple of the three legendary Sannin. Boy did they get _that _wrong. Clearly, the Slug Sannin was the vilest, most twisted of the group. The sister of the Devil; no doubt about it.

While Sasuke considered defecting again just to get out of his current _situation_, his team-mates were trying to absorb what was going on. Well, Sakura was trying to be strong for "her" Sasuke-kun, preparing a speech to give him about not giving up; it was only _five months_ of torture after all, right? Naruto, on the other hand, was laughing himself out of his seat.

"Super-eyebrows is gonna be Sasuke-teme's sensei! AH HA HA HA! Serves that jerk right for leaving us! Now he's gonna get his! Dattebayo!" Naruto shouted, amidst fits of very unmanly giggles. (Kakashi's giggling episodes during his "Icha Icha Paradise" reading were rubbing off on Naruto in a very disconcerting way.)

"_Naruto_," Sakura hissed. "You're actually enjoying seeing your best friend be put through something like this?"

"Of course! He's gonna be hearing nothing but 'Youth this' and 'Springtime of Youth that'! It's gonna be _hell_ for him! Hah! Dattebayo!"

"And what if he turns out like Lee-san?" she asked quietly.

Naruto froze for a moment. "Explain."

Sakura sighed. It wasn't that she didn't like Lee. The boy was extremely sweet. She just wasn't so sure that having two people with his _unique _brand of energy running around would make for the most stable environment. Especially if that other person was Sasuke. It just seemed wrong.

"What if he starts spouting things about the Springtime of Youth and gives "Good Guy" poses everywhere he goes? How does that sound to you?"

Naruto shuddered, picturing Sasuke in a Green Spandex Jumpsuit, his spiky hair tamed into a bowl cut, fake eyebrows glued on to make them thick, and giving a "Good Guy" pose with a smile (double shudder) that goes "Ping!".

"That…would be…absolutely…AWESOME!!! Dattebayo!" Naruto shouted.

Sakura stared at him in disbelief.

"We could call him EMO-eyebrows, or something!" he continued, still picturing Sasuke morphed into a clone of Gai or Lee.

"You can't be serious."

"Dattebayo!"

Sakura cringed at her team-mate's catchphrase. "Naruto, every time you say that, a puppy gets run over and an angel loses its wings."

Naruto paused in his laughing fit to move a little too close to his female companion; shocking blue eyes staring intently into uncomfortable green ones. "Every time I say what, Sakura-chan?" he asked innocently, looking every bit like the previously mentioned puppy (_prior _to being run over, of course, because then he'd look like a mass of biological mush. Okay…_ewww_).

Trying desperately to not go cross-eyed from Naruto's too-close too-bright eyes, and to ignore the heavy ramen breath replacing her sweet, sweet oxygen, Sakura inched away, ever so slightly, and said, "When you say, 'Dattebayo'."

The boy infringing on her personal space scrunched up his face in _fierce_ concentration. He then shook his head and replied, "I don't say that, Sakura-chan."

Sakura's jaw nearly hit the floor. "Naruto," she started hesitantly. "You say it after nearly every sentence."

The addressed guy furrowed his brow and shook his head again. "Nope. I've never said that in my life. You must be hearing me wrong, Sakura-chan." Then his face lit up, glowing like a lantern, as his eyes grew big and shiny. "Maybe _that's _why you always turn down my date offers! You don't understand what I'm saying! Dattebayo!" Triumphant fireworks flashed in the back of Naruto's mind, while Sakura wilted at the turn this conversation was taking.

"No, Naruto, you moron! I don't misunderstand you. I know _exactly _what you say, I just don't want to go out with you!" she whispered heatedly, suddenly aware of the small scene they were beginning to cause. Then she added, "And you do _so_ say 'Dattebayo' after almost every sentence. You _just _said it."

"When?"

"Just now! After, 'You don't understand what I'm saying!', then you said it!"

"You heard wrong Sakura-chan. Dattebayo!" And with that, Naruto turned back to face the front, restoring Sakura's precious personal bubble, and watched the continuing events.

Sakura merely sat there, dazedly staring in confused awe at the epic disaster that was Naruto's short-term memory.

Back at the front of the hall, the third member of the original Team Seven was also staring at another in a dazed awe, though for very different and very disturbing reasons.

"You've _got _to be kidding me," Sasuke said lowly, dark eyes narrowed on the Godaime.

The Lady Hokage grinned evilly at the kneeling Uchiha. "Oh I'm quite serious, Sasuke. Five years of betrayal being repaid with five months of community service? I think I'm being overly generous to you. I'm practically _rewarding_ you for going AWOL." She leaned forward and whispered so only Sasuke and Gai could hear her. "You _will_ comply with this punishment or I _swear _I will hand down a ruling that is a hundredfold worse."

Sasuke snorted. "What could _possibly_ be worse than this? I'd take _death_ over this!" he hissed.

The Godaime smiled far-too sweetly and said, "I'd let your fan-girls have you and do with you as they like."

Sasuke paled about seven shades and shrank about a foot. Scratch her being just the _sister_ of the Devil; she _was _the Devil!

Tsunade's smile widened a degree. She'd hit the right spot. But just to ensure it… "You've been gone for five years, but they're as _rabid_ and _numerous_ as ever. Your criminal status seems to have added to your "danger appeal". There are more of them than you can even fathom. And there's no telling what they would _do_ if they got their _hands_ on you."

The Uchiha gulped, though he tried valiantly to hide it. Gai or fan-girls? Gai or fan-girls? Were these really his options? He couldn't believe he was about to do this. Oh how the mighty have fallen…

"Fine."

"What was that Uchiha? I didn't hear you?" Tsunade bellowed, catching everyone's attention so they could witness the first of many public humiliations to bear down on the captured nin.

_Evil old hag. _

She heard him. He _knew _she had heard him. She just wanted _everyone else _to hear it too.

_What a sadist._

"Fine. I accept the terms and will abide by the rules you have laid out," he muttered through a tight jaw, and had his chakra not been drained and kept at minimum levels during his incarceration, his Sharingan would have been activated and spinning like a juiced-up merry-go-round.

Murmurs swept through the crowd, but the Hokage ignored them and just smiled triumphantly down at the properly humbled nin. "Good!" she cried. "Your community service begins tomorrow! You are dismissed." With that she stood and exited the hall, her advisors and attendant trailing after.

A police nin walked over to him and released his bonds, allowing him to stand.

While most of the other ninjas began filing out of the room, the one he _really_ wished would go with them remained standing before him.

Gai took a step closer and flashed, what Sasuke assumed was meant to be an assuring smile. "Get a lot of rest tonight, Sasuke! You will need your energy to be at its peak for tomorrow's Youth-building activities! The Springtime of Youth awaits you!" And with that, Gai ran off to goodness knows where to do Lord knows what. He was gone. That was all that mattered.

Three figures approached him from behind, schadenfreude spewing off of one of them in bubbly waves, which could only mean one thing…

"TEME!!! You better get those thumbs stretched out and make ready for all the "Good Guy" posing. And exercise that ugly face of yours while you're at it; those flashy smiles take a lot of practice!" came Naruto's obnoxiously loud greeting, closely followed by a screechy "OWW!" after his female team-mate clobbered his noggin.

"Naruto, you idiot! I can't believe you're enjoying this!" Sakura muttered at the thoroughly damaged blonde.

"Sakura-_chaaan_!" Naruto whined, as Naruto often does.

"Shut it, dobe," Sasuke snapped. As strangely comforting as his old team-mates' antics were, Naruto's whimpering was just too much of a nuisance for him at the moment.

Naruto, being Naruto, didn't give a care if he was being irritating. Sasuke had just insulted him. He had to answer for that!

"What did you call me, teme?!" he cried, voice rising dangerously close to his most annoying screech, which he reserved for the more…ah…_profound _arguments he had with his best friend. This meaning, of course, that their "conversation" was on the flight path to inanity and Sasuke had a first-class ticket, courtesy of Naruto. _Oh_, no one knew just how much he did _**not **_need this right now!

"Dobe, just shut up. I don't need to listen to your idiocy today." He paused, and after thinking, added, "Actually, I don't need your idiocy _any_ day. See what you can do about that, yeah?" Sasuke then turned and headed out of the building, feeling a need for the blessed silence and solitude of his own home.

Tomorrow, the gates of Hell were being opened, and Sasuke knew he was going to have to walk on through.

_**To be continued…**_

**Guttersnipe's Word: **This was actually supposed to be a one-shot, but I kept thinking of too many ways to torture and degrade Sasuke (I don't hate him, honest!), that I decided to change it into a chapter fic. It won't be that long, of course. The next update will be soon, since it's practically finished. And there will actually be some stuff happening in the next chapter, unlike this one. (I tend to get caught up in the little things, and end up going on for a few pages about inconsequential stuff instead of important things, like the plot. (It's sort of like what I'm doing right now.) Please forgive my wandering mind.) So, I hope you keep with this thing, and please review. (And by "please" I mean, "Do it, or the Kool-Aid Jug Man and his cup minions will rain down fruit punch flavoured destruction on you and yours.") (And don't tell me that you're not afraid of the Kool-Aid Jug Man. That guy is freaky. I used to have nightmares about him and his cup minions chasing and swallowing me, so that I was drowning in red Kool-Aid. One of my brothers had the same dream, except the juice was purple, and my friend also had the same dream, except the juice was orange and there were no cup minions. I know there has to be more out there like us. Don't be afraid. You're not alone anymore.)

**Coming Soon: **I, According to Me: This is a chapter fic I recently began. It's not really a story; it's just an introspective series that focuses on the inner thoughts or feelings the characters have about themselves, i.e. how they see themselves and how they wish they were perceived, as opposed to how others see them. Each chapter is dedicated to one character, the first one being Naruto, the second Sasuke, et cetera. Hopefully it won't be as boring as this description sounds.

Redundancy is the flour in the mix life. Therefore I shall not be afraid to repeat myself and I shall not be afraid to repeat myself. "Please" review.


	2. A Baby Elephant?

Public Service Announcement

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. That copyright belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

**Chapter 2: A Baby Elephant?**

The sun had yet to drag its lazy butt over the horizon, when Sasuke grudgingly left the comforting obscurity of sleep to prepare for his first day with Gai.

_Oh. Joy._

The glee was just _spewing_ from the Uchiha's slouched form, as he trudged his way over to Team Gai's training grounds.

_Bloody birds aren't even up yet. Too freakin' early._

Indeed, the feathered fauna of Konoha had yet to arise from their homey nests, so early was it. The darkness coating the landscape of the slumbering village was nearly palpable in its thickness; a sure sign of dawn's impending appearance.

Upon arriving at his destination, Sasuke's "ticked" mood was given the designation of "off", when he realized that his probation officer was nowhere to be seen. Gai had specified when he expected Sasuke to be at the training grounds, having sent his trusty pupil, Lee, to inform the Uchiha at his home. Sasuke had nearly choked at the time, when Lee told him.

_Four-seventeen __a.m._

First off, who gets up to train at that hour? There's almost no point in going to sleep if you're just going to get up at quarter to four, like Sasuke had to, to get ready for such an appointment. And secondly, who arranges meeting times at uneven time intervals? Four-seventeen? Why not just say four-fifteen? Or four-twenty? Or better yet_, seven o'clock_? _That_ was a reasonable time. _That _he could understand. _Not_ four-seventeen.

So here he was. Four-flipping-seventeen in the accursed morning and not a green-clad monster---ah, jounin, rather, in sight. Just peachy.

Stifling a jaw-cracking yawn, the teen Uchiha wandered over to a nearby tree and leaned against its trunk, intent on closing his tired eyes for some faux rest.

Just as he had settled comfortably against the smooth bark, arms crossed over his chest, and head tilted down in a lax manner, the sun rapidly rose in a blinding display of colour, silhouetting a posing figure, his arms akimbo and legs set in a wide stance. A rainbow arched over the outlined figure as a waterfall sprouted out of nowhere to feed a bubbling spring that had formed from the ground. Squirrels, bunny rabbits, turtles, deer, chipmunks, racoons, heck, even a baby elephant, gathered around the spontaneously appearing spring, as they frolicked about the newcomer. A triumphant trill, like morning taps in an army barracks, rang throughout the training grounds, as the quickly rising sun---far too fast to be natural---cast its rays in such a way that the identity of the newcomer could be discerned. There, in all his Youthful glory, was the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha, Maito Gai.

Sasuke was trying to fight his eyelids' efforts to protect his precious eyesight by staying closed, so he could take in the…_unique _display before him. It boggled the mind, really. Even Sasuke's smarty-pants brain wasn't able to fully process just what his poor, assaulted eyes were telling it they were seeing.

He vaguely wondered what a baby elephant was doing among the various forest animals present at the newly-formed spring. It also faintly registered that the entire circumstance was cause for serious, X-file class questioning, not just the baby elephant part of it, but his inner musings were soon obliterated, as the spandex-loving man began to raise his arm, initiating the "Good Guy" pose sequence.

It seemed that at that moment, Sasuke's eyelids decided to give up trying to protect his sight from the painfully radiant scene, and instead of closing, shot wide open, allowing the whole vista to be permanently ingrained within his already-scarred consciousness, including the much-hated "Good Guy" pose, complete with the equally loathsome flashy "Ping!".

A mild seizure of the eyelids began, as Sasuke forcibly shut his eyes, while they seemed to want to stay open. Eventually, the eyelids won out, as they snapped back open, though not wide like before, affording him a view of Maito Gai still "Good Guy" posing.

Or at least he thought Gai still had his arm raised. Sasuke was having some trouble seeing the "special" jounin, as the spontaneous sunrise and nature scene seemed to have disappeared, leaving it just as pitch dark as it had been the moment before the vibrant display had occurred.

_Is there anything odder than Gai? _he absently wondered to himself.

"Ohayo, my Youth-deficient student! Are you ready to have your Coals of Youth stoked, so as to ignite the Flame of Youth within your soul, so that you may live life to the fullest in the bosom of the Springtime of Youth?!" Gai boomed, his voice startling the previously slumbering birds from their roosts.

_No, that clinches it. There really _isn't_ anything odder than Gai._

Sasuke didn't respond to Gai's greeting right away. Really, what does one say to that? Well, if you were Lee, you would respond, "Yosh! Gai-sensei!" and run up to the man for a hug, but Sasuke was _not _Lee and he was _not _about to start acting like him any time soon. No siree.

So, Sasuke opted for his tried and true method of greeting people he really didn't want to talk to---which was everyone, really: he "hn"ed his way through it.

"Now Sasuke, that's not much of a greeting," Gai chastised gently. "The Power of Youth awaits you! But it does not visit upon those with heavy countenances. One must be light of spirit and free of mind to acquire the full bounty of Youth! Now let's hear it again, shall we?! Ohayo Sasuke!" Gai looked at said person expectantly, a too-wide smile splitting his face.

"Hn."

Gai shook his shiny head and said, "No, no, Sasuke! You have to respond with earnest and vigour! Show the world that Youth has a place in your heart and that you're truly bursting with the Springtime of Youth! Now come on! Ohayo Sasuke!"

"Hn," Sasuke replied, with the slightest of annoyed nods.

"That's the spirit!" Gai shouted and clapped Sasuke on the shoulder, taking the slight, annoyed nod as a sign of effort on the Uchiha's part to be more energetic. "You just have to keep at it and eventually the full Power of Youth will be alive and burning within you! Ohhh, I expect to see cute, Lee-like salutes and shouts of "Yosh! Gai-sensei!" coming from you in a matter of weeks." (Insert "Ping!" here.)

Sasuke cringed, his face crumpling in sheer disgust at the thought of doing _anything _that emulated _Lee_,of all people. Fuzzy-eyebrows was the last person he wanted to be identified with. The mere thought of it made him shudder. Internally, of course. Can't have a show of such blatant weakness in front of Gai. No sir. The man might take it as a sign that he needed to comfort his new charge. And a comforting Gai, was a journey into the realm of weird that Sasuke would prefer to skip.

"Well now," Gai began. "I trust you're all rested up. Believe me; today's Youth-building exercises are going to take a lot out of you."

Sasuke nodded absently, while muttering inside the exact opposite of what he just indicated. How much rest can one get when they have to get up at quarter to four in the morning? Gai must go to sleep at seven p.m. or something, if this was his regular routine.

"Well, Sasuke! Your journey into the Springtime of Youth begins NOW!" Gai boomed, pulling an obscure mass out of nowhere, and presenting it to the addressed teen.

Sasuke stared hard at the ambiguous item for a few moments. It appeared to be made of some sort of flimsy fabric, but that was really all he could discern in the sparse light.

He looked back up at the beaming jounin before him, face as blank as a clean slate, and indifference radiating like water from a sprinkler.

Gai took this moment to launch into a well-practiced introduction of his most-loved piece of ninja attire. "THIS is the finest piece of shinobi gear known to man! With it, you will experience a surge of Youth Power unlike any rush you have felt before! Upon first donning this fine talisman of Youth, the Flames of Youth will overtake your soul, sending it spiralling into a sea of undiluted Youthful vivacity! It is the only outfit you will ever need from here on out! It will facilitate growth of your Powers of Youth and ensure you a lasting place within the utopian world of the Springtime of Youth! YOSH! IT IS, INDEED, THE GREAT, MAGNIFICENT, UNRIVALLED, AND _BEAUTIFUL_ **GREEN SPANDEX JUMPSUIT**!!!" Fireworks suddenly went off behind the posing sensei, lighting up the image of the Beautiful Green Beast holding the ambiguous article aloft, as though it were the Holy Grail.

Sasuke blinked rapidly, willing the stabbing pain to leave his precious eyes, as the glaring flashes continued to assail his vision. Honestly, didn't Gai know just how important his eyesight was to him? He was an Uchiha, for crying out loud! The Sharingan man, the Sharingan! Gai should know not to put on displays that entail bright, flashy lights when Sasuke's eyes were adjusted to the dark; Sasuke's potential value for being a reinstated Konoha ninja depended on it.

Once the blinding bursts of brightness began to fade, the Uchiha managed to pry his abused eyes open wide enough to peek at the accursed object that was the cause for the great ado Gai had just run his mouth off over. There, still lifted high in Maito Gai's hands, was a green blob and two smaller orange blobs, flapping in the breeze.

And then it all clicked. The ambiguous item was one of those disgusting jumpsuits that Gai and Lee always wore. Which could only mean…

"There is no freakin' way I'm wearing that piece of crap," Sasuke muttered darkly, eyeing the green and orange ensemble with wariness and detest.

"Now, now, Sasuke," Gai placated, a finger wagging in the teen's face. "Such language is uncalled for. Your Youth powers suffer from such behaviour. No wonder you are such a Gloomy Gus."

This was hell. He'd rather have Sakura force-feed him apple wedges like she tried to when they were genin, than do this. Hmmm… Sakura feeding him apple wedges… That didn't seem so bad, now that he thought about it.

Hold on just a minute! What the heck was that?! Did his hormones just kick in?! Yes! _Finally!_ Five years after puberty, his hormones have finally made an appearance!

It still baffled him how he managed to mature physically without the supposedly necessary change in hormone levels. It had to be a result of one of Orochimaru's crazy-faced experiments. Probably designed so he wouldn't start noticing the opposite sex, which would have crushed the Snake Sannin's ridiculous hope of Sasuke returning his (ahem) "affections". (There had been _so many_ things about Orochimaru's interest in him that Sasuke had had to forcibly repress and ignore just to get through a day in Oto, that he was certain he was missing about two and a half of the three years he had spent in Sound. And every now and then, a carefully repressed memory would bubble to the surface---at the most inconvenient times too---forcing him to find solitude _immediately_, lest someone see him either, A) tremble in revulsion, B) sit with his mouth hanging open in shock and horror, C) sit on the floor in the corner, drawing his knees to his chest, and rocking back and forth, murmuring, "Mississauga rattlesnakes eat brown bread…", or D) collapse on the ground, sobbing his heart out over his traumatic experience in Oto, screaming at anyone who tries to comfort him not to touch him because he's "unclean", after which he would beg for his mother, to which the bystander would have to say his mother was dead and had been since he was eight, at which he would begin wailing anew over the loss of his dearly departed mother. Yes. It was best for everyone that he work through any repressed memories---that suddenly became _un_repressed---alone.)

"**No**. I will _not _wear that _thing_," Sasuke spat. There was just _no way_ he would ever, _**ever**_ get into that jumpsuit. It looked like it might actually _eat _him if he got too close.

"Oh, ho ho! I see!" Gai boomed. A reassuring smile lit up his face, causing Sasuke to shrivel up inside. Despite its intention, that smile always preceded something disconcerting.

"Lee!" Gai called out.

Out of nowhere, said teen sprang forth; round eyes staring up at his sensei in askance; an unhealthy need to serve his sensei in any way possible exuding from his being in sugary, gag-inducing waves.

"Yes, Gai-sensei?" Lee asked. After a _millisecond _of just _rude_ ignorance, Lee turned to Sasuke and cried, "Oh! Forgive me for my lack of manners! Greetings, Sasuke-kun!"

The addressed nin merely grunted in return, entertaining his mind with images of that Green Spandex Jumpsuit before him, being consumed by his Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu. Ahhh… All the tension and irritation just melts away.

"Lee," Gai said, calling his protégé's attention back to him.

"Yes, Gai-sensei?"

"Bring us the Guide."

"The Guide, Gai-sensei?" Lee asked, eyebrows forming a peak as concern began to amass in the _special_ nin. "Is there a GSJ-related crisis you are experiencing that I should know about?"

"No, no, Lee," Gai chuckled. "I need it for Sasuke." He leaned in close to Lee, and said in a whisper that could have been heard by a deaf person five kilometres away, "He is having some issues with the GSJ that I think will be resolved if he reads the Guide."

"What sort of issues, exactly, Gai-sensei? Is it serious?" Lee questioned, his worry growing with each passing moment.

"I am fairly certain that his aversion to putting on the GSJ is due to the fact that he is intimidated by the donning process, but he is just too proud to admit it. You know how much pride he has, as an Uchiha," Gai answered, earning an understanding nod from his student.

A few feet away, the mentioned Uchiha just rolled his eyes at the two shinobi's conversation. _Yes_. He was _afraid _of the jumpsuit because he didn't know how to put it on. That _must _be why he was saying he didn't want to wear it; he was covering for his _insecurities._

_Morons._

"I see, Gai-sensei. The Guide will solve this predicament. Yosh!" Lee agreed, and then reached into his Green Spandex Jumpsuit and pulled out a small green booklet with neon orange lettering. He turned to Sasuke and handed it to him.

"What the heck is that for?" he spat. "I already told you I'm not wearing that thing, I don't need a _guide_ to help me with it. I'm not going to put it on."

The other two shinobi shared knowing looks, then turned back to their charge.

"It's okay Sasuke," Gai said in a fatherly tone that forced an eye-roll from the Uchiha. "We're not judging. The process of donning the GSJ can be very daunting for a newbie. Not everyone is as naturally gifted in this talent as my Lee here is." Gai smiled at his favourite student and chuckled. "Why, I'd say that no one could beat his record. It only took Lee _three_ tries to get into his Green Spandex Jumpsuit. I myself took two, but in all fairness I was a lot older and wiser when I first attempted to don the suit, unlike young Lee."

"Gai-sensei!" shouted Lee.

"Lee!" Gai returned.

They made to hug; their sunset was already erupting behind them, ready to burst to full glory once the two embraced; their tears were already pooling in their eyes, prepped to spew forth. However a certain ex-missing-nin interrupted their Youthful display.

"How could it possibly take you three, or even _two_ attempts to put on a stupid piece of clothing?" Sasuke muttered, eyes nearly rolling out of their sockets from his disbelief.

Suddenly, the early-morning sunset shattered to nothingness, the tears evaporated like water on hot coals, and the two green-clad ninjas straightened from their abandoned hug. Sasuke was _such _a moment-ruiner; he _definitely _didn't know how to read the atmosphere of a situation.

After a moment's pause, wherein Lee stared off into the slowly brightening distance with a kicked-puppy look on his face and Gai's flawless form faltered for a millisecond of sadness over his lost hug, both Beautiful Green Beasts turned their thickly-browed eyes back to the Youth-retarded youth before them.

A conniving gleam burst to life in Gai's eyes; a gleam Sasuke did not care for.

As nonchalantly as he could muster himself to be---which wasn't all that much, considering he was _Gai_---the jounin cast a sideward look at the former missing-nin and said, "Why don't you try and see for yourself, Sasuke? I'll wager a bet that you won't be able to get into the GSJ on your first or even second try. There's no way you can beat my Lee!"

Said ninja turned watery eyes on his idol, a new hug for the man itching to be formed with his arms. Gai-sensei believed he could best the Uchiha! Yosh! He would not let his teacher down! There was no way Sasuke would be able to beat his record, or he wasn't Rock Lee, the Second Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha!

"Tch. Save your bets. I'm not doing it."

And just like that, both Youthful shinobi were crushed once again. Really, how did Sasuke do it? A few words and BAM! Their Flames of Youth were suffering from the Downpour of Unyouthful Despair, or the DUDs, as Gai and Lee sometimes called it. It was a dark day when the clouds of the DUDs came rolling into their sunny skies of Youth. A dark day indeed.

After taking a deep, Youth-refreshing breath, Gai responded, "Very well, Sasuke. I will not _force _you to wear the GSJ. Actually, I expected this rebellious response. You are a lot like my Neji, if I must say." He chuckled at some inner thought, oblivious to the twitch that had popped into Sasuke's left eye at the mention of him being like Neji.

There was no way he was like the Hyuuga. Sure, they both rarely spoke, and when they did it tended to be in short, concise sentences or monosyllabic sounds. And yes, they both came from prestigious clans and most people saw them as geniuses---though Sasuke knew he wasn't _really _the prodigy of his clan, but he wasn't about to correct people to tell them that his clan-killing _dead_ brother had been the genius in his family, since, as was previously mentioned, he didn't speak a lot. But other than that, they had _nothing _in common, so drawing comparisons between the two was really useless: they were nothing alike.

And just to prove it, and show his indignation at Gai for having the _audacity_ to compare him, an _Uchiha_, with Neji, a _Hyuuga_, Sasuke replied with a very disgruntled, "Hn."

"That's what I mean! Just like my Neji!" Gai shouted, delivering a hearty slap to Sasuke's back for good measure.

Then, completely oblivious to the murderous scowl that just planted itself on the Uchiha's face, Gai walked a few feet away, then whirled around and struck a "Manly Man" pose. Sasuke didn't know this pose had a name, of course. He did however, recognize it from earlier, when the jounin had arrived, with his arms akimbo and legs set in a wide stance.

_Always with the posing. Can't just stand like a normal, non-brain damaged person. No. Gotta stand like a---like a…well, like _Gai

Too caught up in his inner bashing of Gai, Sasuke didn't hear the jounin tell him what they would be doing next, but when the "Manly Man" pose switched to a "Youthful Warm-up" pose, where both Gai and Lee began stretching their legs while creating new self-enforced disciplines for themselves should they fail to stretch properly, Sasuke assumed they would be running shortly.

Straightening, Gai turned to his silent charge and said, "Well, time to get going, Sasuke!"

He turned to leave when, Sasuke stopped him. "Where are we going?"

Gai turned back to the Uchiha, while Lee took the delay to squeeze in a few extra stretches: he wanted to make doubly sure that he would not be shown up by Sasuke.

"Why, we're going to deliver the morning paper to everyone in Konoha, of course!" Gai answered, a flashy smile splitting his lips. "It is one of the many community service and Youth-building activities I set up for you." He grinned again, and then added, "We will be doing this every morning for the next five months! It's going to be wonderful; bringing the people of Konoha the news they need! Yes indeedy! A wonderful experience this shall be!" And with that, Gai and Lee took off, headed for the village and their cache of papers.

Sasuke just slumped his shoulders and let out a very, very long sigh.

_Tch. Freaking Hokage. _

* * *

The sun had_ finally_ dragged its lazy butt over the horizon, albeit barely, when the "Nice Guy Newsies", as Lee had dubbed them, finished their paper delivering duties. (Shortly after proclaiming himself, Gai, and Sasuke by that unfortunate title, Lee had received a whole bag-full of rolled up papers to the back of his shiny head, prompting him to immediately stop calling them that. Or it gave him mild amnesia and he didn't remember ever thinking of that name. Either way, he stopped using it, and that was all that mattered to the brooding and _completely _innocent ex-missing-nin who accompanied him.)

They took a "Youth-refresher" on a bench near a variety of wares-stands and supplies shops. A few stands and a couple of shops were already open, but most were only in the process of opening, or were not even thought of by their operators yet. It was still pretty freaking early, much to Sasuke's chagrin. As soon as his community service for the day was done, he was heading straight home and hopping directly into bed. Ahh; the downy softness of a pillow-top mattress. Heaven, that's what that was.

"Sasuke-kun, can't you just _feel _the Youth radiating from the awakening earth?"

And this… This truly was Hell. Sasuke was beginning to see the upside to having no qualms about killing a Hokage. Fortunately---though at times it seemed unfortunate, as in this instance as he was _really _starting to wish it was differently---Orochimaru's penchant for murdering Leaf leaders did not rub-off on Sasuke. So, it would seem his rather frustrating circumstances would be going un-avenged for the time being.

When the Uchiha didn't answer him, Lee scooted closer and stared intently into the silent boy's face.

Sasuke was snapped out of his occupied state of cursing his reinstated morals to a temporary damnation---just until the old hag was properly dealt with---back to the cruel reality that he himself was in his _own _temporary damnation, as he found himself mere inches from _very_ round, _very_ big, _very heavily_ eyebrowed, _very oddly_ bottom eyelashed eyes. (Insert soul-shaking shudder here.)

Now, if Sasuke were a person who was easily startled, he would have yelped in surprise and terror whilst jumping like a frog hooked to electrical wires, and removing any need his body may have had for use of a restroom in the near future. And if he were someone who was mildly easy to startle, he would have jumped in that half-seizure, someone-put-a-small-ice-cube-down-your-back kind of manner that such people are prone to do when taken by surprise.

However, Sasuke wasn't easily or mildly easy to startle. He was a shinobi, for crying out loud; he had anti-startle skills firmly ingrained into his very _soul_. (Hyperbole alert on.) Therefore, there were no startled cries, nor spastic jumps and jerks, nor spontaneously wet pants, which were dry moments before. No, he took it like a ninja would; mutely and without reaction until further details presented themselves…all the while thanking sweet goodness for his lethargy from too little sleep, thus denying him the energy for jumping in surprise, and that he didn't have time to have breakfast, so there was nothing to suddenly alter the moisture level of his pants with.

After regaining his composure---er, ah, not that he _lost _it, that is---Sasuke leaned against the backrest of the bench to afford him more personal space between Lee and himself. It would seem as though he were stuck between a Rock and a hard place. Ahh puns… Sasuke _hated _them. They were in the same league as Itachi, the Godaime Hokage, and sentences more than five syllables long: tools of the Devil, the lot of them. Though, he had previously established---only yesterday, in fact---that the Godaime _was_ the Devil, so then that would mean… Ahh! Too much analysis. Just say they were _all _evil and be done with it.

During Sasuke's inner theological debate, Lee had become rather perplexed by the unvocal tendencies of the young Uchiha. And in the next instant, the Prodigy of Hard Work decided to take it upon himself to lighten his peer's heart with a fresh batch of unyielding Youth. And what better way to shine some rays of blessed Youth down into the EMO-istic boy than through creative verse?

Leaping to his feet, the green-clad teen struck the "Manly Man" pose---a pose Sasuke was becoming all-too familiar within a disturbingly short amount of time. Holy rays of excitement and glee seemed to be shooting forth from his eyes as Lee gave a flashy smile, accompanied by a shrill "Ping!" to complete the scene.

A terrible sense of foreboding suddenly overtook the dark nin. _Who were these people?_ That both Gai and Lee could so effortlessly strip him of his security of sureness and order made Sasuke very uncomfortable and rattled him to a layer far deeper than he would ever admit. Dealing with them was like trying to organize your instant ramen stash by flavour, knowing Naruto was in the vicinity: you could bet that not only was your ramen not going to be staying in order, but also that it wasn't going to be intact and uneaten for longer than three minutes. Gai and Lee could damage Sasuke's calm in a manner that he swore only his evil, _evil_, _**evil**_ brother had been able to.

Sakes alive! That was it! They were both Itachi incarnate, sent back from the fiery depths of the deepest pit of Hell to torment him for the remainder of his existence! What did he do when he was a child to make whatever Powers That Be hate him _this_ much?

Was it the broken tea set? Because he had apologized _profusely _to his mother for accidentally smashing the priceless family heirloom with a stray kunai.

Or maybe it was the cat he had accidentally de-tailed, again with a stray kunai. (Okay, so his prowess with kunai wasn't exactly exemplar in his carefree childhood days. Was that a crime?) But he apologized to the owner, his cousin or something like that, and he had been _truly_ sorry. Especially when his father found out. Boy, did the fur fly that evening (pun fully intended).

Other than various other unfortunate kunai-related accidents, Sasuke couldn't think of any other terrible things he had done to deserve such horrible happenings in his life. Perhaps it was simply fate.

Oh great. Now he _really did_ sound like Neji. Just perfect.

"Sasuke-kun---my esteemed rival and comrade!" Lee proclaimed, shattering the early morning quietude and earning some turned heads from the few people who were out and about. (Again, it was just _waaay_ too early.)

Sasuke slouched a couple extra millimetres, resigning himself to whatever horrors were to follow that grating attention-grabber.

Not picking up on the Uchiha's loathing, Lee continued with his _perfect_ plan to raise Sasuke's spirits.

"In honour of your new beginning, as you remerge into the Springtime of Youth, I shall compose a poem to convey the intensity and significance of this momentous occasion!" the Rock declared, a fist shooting into the air.

Sasuke froze---not that he had been moving in the first place, but internally his thoughts and perpetual state of brooding came to a screeching halt. He was going to compose a _what_?! A poem? No, Sasuke had to have heard wrong. Very, _very wrong_.

Alas, his fine shinobi hearing was not faulty, as Sasuke so hoped.

Raising an arm to the blue and yellow heavens, whilst lifting one foot to rest on the bench and casting his bingo ball eyes to the ever-brightening sky, Lee began his ill-conceived effort to bring the Spirit of Youth unto the wayward Uchiha.

"I call this poem, 'Ode upon the Joyous Rekindling of His Youthful Fire'," said Lee, raising a fist to his heart, pure emotion beginning to spill off his being in sticky waves.

Had Sasuke been capable of thinking straight, he would have snorted, thrown an insult, and stalked away from the green-freak before him. However, his mind was in a state of horrified awe and thus incapable of doing anything but watch passively, as his already battered psyche was molested yet again.

"O wayward soul,

At rest nearby;

Thine Youthful Flame

Hast withered, died.

A Youthful splendour,

Lost to the sea

Of Unyouthful sadness,

EMO, and misery."

Lee cast a tear-filled gaze at the aghast Uchiha, a fist clutched tightly to his chest. Suddenly, he threw his hands to the heavens, beseeching, as he continued,

"'Woe! Woe!'

Youth screams and cries,

Lamenting the loss

Of its son, with Sharingan eyes.

Thou hast been caught outside

In the Downpour of Unyouthful Despair,

With no umbrella in sight,

The rain hast doused thine Youthful flare."

The _unique _shinobi spun around to stare intently into Sasuke's widened eyes.

"But fear not!

O wayward soul!

Youth shall return;

It shall make you whole.

Through patience and fortitude,

Hard work and Youth-building grace,

The Springtime of Youth

Shall bestow a smile on your face."

Once again, the ninja-come-bard was gesturing fervently to the morning sky, casting emotion-filled glances at the still-silent nin on the nearby bench, as he went on,

"For once all the gloomy

Clouds are all gone,

You will see the sun shining

And know the Power of Youth has won.

Then your soul will rejoice;

Your Powers of Youth made complete.

And you shall take your place

As the Third Green Beast!"

And after a triumphant spin, Lee firmly planted himself and struck a blinding "Good Guy" pose, complete with a "Ping!"ing smile, while a sunset settled into the street behind him, despite the early hour.

Yes. His job was done. There was _no way_ his esteemed rival could retain an ounce of gloominess after that Youthfully emotional work of heartfelt poetic genius! Not a chance! Yep. Sasuke was going to be leaping to his feet, Youthful tears streaming from flaming eyes, any moment now…

The Uchiha didn't move. Well, _technically_, he did, but it wasn't voluntary. Approximately eleven tics had developed in Sasuke's face over the course of Lee's recitation, and they were still very much active.

Sasuke wasn't aware of his face's odd behaviour, though. Indeed, the happenings outside of his own mind were completely unnoticed by the ex-avenger. His consciousness had been going into a mild stupor from the moment Lee had mentioned a poem. When he had actually started spewing his inane drabble, Sasuke had frozen to the point of ceasing breathing for the full extent of Lee's performance. At the last line, though, the Uchiha's mind had completely shut itself off from the outside world, allowing his natural respiratory activities to resume, but not allowing his mind to comprehend the fact.

Now, he was huddled in a corner of his psyche that he had hoped to never have to find refuge in again. The last time he had locked himself there had been after a particularly, ah, shall we say, _uncomfortable_ day in Oto. The Snake Sicko had been _extra _forward with his designs on Sasuke and the teen had had to lock himself in a little hidey-hole he had found on the base in preparation for such an emergency. While safe in his fortress, the Uchiha had shutdown mentally, retreating into himself until the shock and horror had sufficiently subsided.

And here he was again; forced to find comfort and safety in a desolate part of his fractured mentality by a Green Spandex Jumpsuit-wearing, shiny bowl-cut sporting, thick-eyebrowed, poetry spouting shinobi, who couldn't even use chakra. What was the world coming to?

It was ridiculous that this overtly _unique _nin could disturb Sasuke to his very core so effortlessly. How did he do it? Lee and Gai; if Konoha were to go to war, they ought to just send those two out onto the battlefield and let them damage the psyches of the enemy shinobi until they were all curled up in the fetal position and murmuring incoherent phrases from traumatic experiences of their childhoods. It wouldn't take long and Leaf would _definitely_ win.

As Sasuke tried to regain some control over his mental processes, Lee was watching him with hopeful eyes. However, his positive attitude was slowly faltering, as the stoic Uchiha didn't move a muscle, nor say a word, nor even look at him. There had been some movement on Sasuke's face moments before, but that had faded before Lee could determine what deeper emotions they were hinting at.

Had his magnificent poem really failed to ignite a Spark of Youth within the ex-missing-nin? Well, he would admit that it _probably_ hadn't been his _best_ work. Really, he had created it on the fly, free-styling, as it were. But could it _really_ have fallen so short of the levels of Youthful Power that it didn't even spur the slightest of reactions from his sullen companion? The thought chilled Lee's soul. How could it be possible for him, who was so overflowing with the Power of Youth, to fail Youth so completely? Lee was in a tizzy.

The Beautiful Green Beast was pulled from his inner worries when one of his team-mates approached.

Hyuuga Neji walked up to Lee, his face as impassive as ever, though there was an amused gleam in his white eyes, if one were perceptive enough to notice.

"Ah, Neji-kun. Ohayo," Lee greeted, though not as cheerily as was per his usual.

"Lee," the Hyuuga answered, nodding. He noticed his team-mate's uncharacteristic behaviour, but taking one glance at the occupant of the nearby bench and Neji didn't have to ask why.

He suppressed a malicious grin at the sight of the apparently comatose Uchiha. Most people would wonder and ask questions upon seeing the ex-avenger in such a state. However, Neji had some experience that, fortunately, most people didn't have: he was on a team with Rock Lee. And due to this little fact, Neji knew exactly what was wrong with the dark-eyed ninja before him. He knew, because he himself had been in the same unresponsive stupor on various occasions when he had first been put on a team with Gai and Lee. Those two could do great and terrible things to one's unprepared mind.

Someone really should have warned Uchiha. Yep. Somone… Heh.

His smirk widened slightly.

"What are you up to this fine morning?" Lee asked, attempting to regain some of his lost uppity-ness from his failed attempt to Youthify Sasuke.

Neji nodded slightly in the direction of a shop, as he answered, "I'm waiting for Tenten to buy some new kunai, then we're going to train."

Looking over at one of the shops, Lee could see his female team-mate haggling a shopkeeper over the price of kunai. The store owner seemed adamant about keeping his prices as they were, but Tenten seemed just as determined to get herself a discount.

After casting another glance at the mute ninja on the bench, Neji turned back to Lee. "What were you all doing today?"

A light brightened Lee's countenance, as he recalled the early morning activities that he, his beloved sensei, and his new companion had participated in. "Well, we delivered the morning paper to the citizens of Konoha. Gai-sensei says we will be doing this for the next five months, but, personally, I hope that we will continue to do that noble task even after that time has passed," Lee responded, animatedly.

Neji shook his head slightly. Leave it to Lee to enjoy an activity that was meant as punishment for a missing-nin.

"We are now resting until Gai-sensei returns with our next task. But…" Lee trailed off, disappointment showing in his round eyes.

"But?" Neji prodded. Normally he wouldn't pursue such a matter, but he was fairly certain that his team-mate's depressed mood had to do with the Uchiha's unresponsiveness, and that _was_ something he _did_ want to hear about.

Lee sighed; a _very_ uncharacteristic thing for the spandex-sporting shinobi. "He seemed so down and silent. I thought he just needed a little burst of Youth to raise his spirits and stoke his Flames of Youth," Lee answered, a downcast look darkening his features. "So, I decided to compose a poem…"

Neji fairly choked on the air he was inhaling. A poem? Oh. Sweet. Lord. What he wouldn't give to have seen _that_. No wonder the Uchiha was in such a deep state of catatonia. Neji almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost. He was just filled with far too much glee at this situation to bring himself to actually pity the traumatized nin.

But he wanted to see a reaction from the Uchiha. So, he turned his attention back to the silent shinobi and said, "Oi, Uchiha. You dead, or are you just getting my hopes up?"

The addressed teen seemed to twitch slightly, though it could have been the wind shifting his unmoving body.

"I…" Lee began, in a whisper. "I think I might have broke him, Neji-kun."

The Hyuuga half-smiled at this. "Oh, I'm fairly certain that happened _long_ before you got to him, Lee."

Unbeknownst to them, the topic of their discussion was finally aware of his surroundings, albeit hazily. He noticed a white-eyed man beside a green-clad one. Something in the back of his mind registered them as Hyuuga and Lee, respectively. _Lee_, a venomous voice spoke in his head. Recalling the horrendous poem the man had subjected him to forced Sasuke fully back into reality.

Shaking his head slightly, the ex-missing-nin blinked to soothe his dry eyes from not blinking for who knew how long. Once he was fairly composed, he turned his attention to the two shinobi standing before him.

Excitement and relief was pouring from Lee and he began to rant about the Springtime of Youth and how it couldn't be forced upon a person and that he was sorry for trying to do just that. He then began explaining his reasons for composing a poem to lighten the Uchiha's mood, and went on about the wonders of creative verse to stir the depths of a sleeping, Unyouthful soul, which inevitably led to Lee running off a whole slew of poems about his Youthful apology for shocking Sasuke with his overwhelming Youth Powers---which was what Lee understood Sasuke's reaction to be the result of---and even more poems about the greatness of Youth and the young flowers of Konoha, which one assumed were the kunoichi, as he repeatedly mentioned a 'fair cherry blossom of Youthful beauty and Youthfulness' that could only be his precious Sakura-san.

Sasuke just tuned the rambling shinobi out, as he turned his attention to the newcomer.

A condescending aura seemed to be choking the air about the gifted Hyuuga as he eyed Sasuke quietly, while Lee ranted about Youth's wonders. Yes. He was _definitely _enjoying this.

_Feel the pain, Uchiha. Feel it!_

Sensing a large amount of unmasked schadenfreude bubbling out of a smirking Neji, Sasuke levelled a Class-1 glare at the Byakugan wielder. It did nothing to stifle the shameful joy in the Hyuuga---indeed, it made his glee shoot up a notch---but the meaning was there.

While Lee was deeply engrossed in a love sonnet for his "fair Sakura-san", spouting so that the whole village could hear his terrible poetry, Neji moved closer to Sasuke, intent on hearing about his experience so far with Gai and Lee. And there was something he just _had_ to know…

"Enjoying your time with the freaks, are you?" Neji asked smugly. The news of Sasuke being put through the same bizarre hell he himself had gone through was "The-Main-House-Is-No-More" to his ears. That Godaime Hokage; she was _truly_ wise.

The addressed teen narrowed his eyes, ever so slightly, letting his addressor know that he was _not_ amused.

Neji's lips twitched, for he _was _amused. But there was something he just had to ask. It had been bothering him since the first time he had met Gai, and he had to ask Sasuke about it. He just had to know.

Glancing about nonchalantly, the Hyuuga took in a steeling breath and said in an off-handed manner, "Did you see the baby elephant?"

Sasuke's head immediately snapped about to face Neji. His face contorted into a look of disbelief; a rarity for the Uchiha. He was speechless for a moment, his mind whirring with images of Gai's arrival at the training grounds that morning, and more specifically, the animals that had mysteriously appeared and disappeared around him.

"That was real?" Sasuke asked in disbelief. He had chalked it up to exhaustion, irritation, and well, the odd aura that followed Gai wherever he went.

"So, you did see it then? You saw the baby elephant, right?" Neji asked, narrowing his eyes on the Uchiha and earnestness beginning to creep into his vapid voice.

"Yeah," Sasuke answered slowly, curiosity over Neji's odd behaviour beginning to overtake his previous shock.

"So it was real. I knew it. I'm not crazy," Neji mumbled, more to himself than anyone else, but Sasuke heard it anyway, and cocked an eyebrow at the other teen.

Seeing this, Neji opted to elaborate on his words. "Tenten didn't see it. The first time we met Gai, there was this blinding sunrise, but it was still a good half-hour to sunup. Then there was a rainbow and a waterfall and a spring. Then all these forest animals appeared out of nowhere, and this baby elephant was there too. None of it made any sense," he murmured the last comment to himself.

Sasuke was nodding nearly imperceptibly to everything his companion was saying, horrified awe slowly creeping into his system. _Good Lord_, he's done it more than once?! Who knew how many poor souls were out there, traumatized by the mind boggling scene Gai had subjected them to. He was sick! He needed to be stopped.

"_I _saw the baby elephant," Neji continued. "Tenten didn't, though. She said that the surreal images that Gai had exposed us to had created a temporary rift between my logical mind and my subconscious, thus allowing entry for a fabricated event into my conscious memory." Neji shook his head and looked intensely at Sasuke. "I _knew _what I saw, but she didn't believe it. And I couldn't ask Lee, because it's not like his psyche is exactly what one would call reliably stable."

Sasuke just nodded in response. He was astounded at how deeply scarred the Hyuuga prodigy was by his first meeting with Gai. Truly, Maito Gai was a danger to the entire village. For him to be able to damage the calm of both himself and Neji---two extremely logical and unmovable shinobi---was cause for great concern. The man was a maniac, plain and simple. The thought of enduring five months of his diabolical "Youth-building" activities was enough to send chills down Sasuke's spine. The man was going to be the death of him. Or, at the very least, the death of what was left of his ever so fragile sanity.

Lee had finally finished his painful poem (Sasuke thought he had faintly heard Lee call it, "Youthful Ode upon the Springtime of My Fairest Cherry Blossom's Youthful Radiance of Youth" , or some such horrific title), and was now looking at the two stoic shinobi with expectant eyes.

Oh goodness, no. He didn't want their _opinions_ did he? Did he _seriously_ think it was going to get good reviews? Heck, Sasuke would wager a bet that even Sakura wouldn't be able to blatantly lie her way to a complement for that piece of garbage Lee had just shouted to the world, and boy, was that girl good at showing false appreciation so as not to cause hurt feelings, when it came to Lee. Sasuke had seen it on many an occasion when Lee was smothering her with attention and making ridiculous declarations of love and vows to win her heart or else he would launch himself into a barrage of self-enforced disciplines. She was one smooth operator when it came to lying to Lee.

Sasuke assumed that some of her words were true. The kunoichi wasn't so amoral as to have an entire friendship with a person based on subterfuge. But there was just _no way _she actually _liked _all of Lee's obsessive affections and grandiose presentations. There was no way. Not a chance.

But then again, who was to say what was _really _going on in the girl's mind? Women were strange creatures, in Sasuke's experience. They say one thing and mean another, or they _actually _mean what they say, but it's something so outrageous that you believe that they didn't actually mean it.

Sasuke considered himself to be quite proficient at reading his female team-mate. The girl had always been transparent to him and still was, for the most part. But there were times when he was absolutely lost in the face of Sakura's, to put it plainly, seemingly insane mind. The girl was a loose cannon in an increasing amount of situations, and Sasuke didn't like that he wasn't able to predict her actions as easily as he used to. A five year absence will do that, he supposed.

So, the possibility presented itself: Sakura may actually enjoy Fuzzy-eyebrows' _unique _brand of attention. He shuddered at the thought of them getting together. What would their children look like?

Sasuke suddenly pictured a brood of little Lee look-alikes, all sporting shiny bowl-cuts and Green Spandex Jumpsuits, except their hair and thick eyebrows were pink instead of black, and their bingo ball eyes were bright green instead of dark.

_Gah! Bad mental images! Repress! REPRESS!!!_

Directing his now twitching eyes at Lee, Sasuke initiated a dark glare that seemed to be entirely lost on Lee, but made the Uchiha feel slightly better. In an aggravated tone, he said, "That was the crappiest excuse for poetry I've ever heard. If bloody, putrescent mucous could be converted into words, that was it."

Not surprisingly, Lee didn't even flinch. He merely smiled and nodded, then turned to his team-mate with the same expectant look smeared across his features.

Neji's shoulders seemed to crumple a degree as he let out a defeated sigh. There was really no other way to put this. "Lee," he began evenly. "That was probably the worst poem I've ever heard in my life, and I didn't even hear all of it."

At this, Lee's thick eyebrows formed perplexed curves, as his gaze dropped to the ground for a moment. In the next instant, he shot his two companions a dazzling smile, full of pearly whites, and struck a variation of the "Good Guy" pose, called the "Vow of Youth" pose. The only difference from the "Good Guy" pose was, instead of holding an arm straight out with a thumbs-up, Lee bent his arm so his hand was beside his head and formed a fist with it. Fire of Youth blazed to life in his large eyes, and Neji and Sasuke could already see that an oath of betterment was on the way.

"Yosh! My esteemed rivals! I shall set out to create a work of poetry so awe-inspiring and Youthful, even you, my stoic and composed comrades, will be moved to Youthful tears."

The addressed shinobi both rolled their eyes, quietly begging for their exuberant companion to just leave. Of course, they knew he would never leave without declaring his next self-enforced discipline, should he fail to fulfill his vow. But after that, he'd better be gone.

With his fist still raised, Lee's eyes seemed to blaze even brighter, going from bonfire to house fire in a millisecond. "And should I fail to achieve this goal I have set for myself, I shall hug every tree in the western forest while carrying fifty pound weights on each arm!" With that, the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha ran off to perpetrate another crime against poetry for his "Youthful flower, Sakura-san."

"You do realize that he won't stop until we actually cry while listening to one of his pieces of crap, right?" Neji said, staring hard in the direction Lee had disappeared.

"I'll _make _him stop, if it comes to it," Sasuke replied, with a scoff.

The Hyuuga shook his head. Turning to the Uchiha next to him, he said, "Lee isn't one to be deterred easily. He will keep trying, even if you threaten his life. Believe me, I know."

Sasuke quirked an eyebrow slightly. The Hyuuga couldn't be going where he thought he was going… "So what do you propose we do? And it better not be what I think it is, because there is _no_ way---"

"No," Neji quickly interrupted. "No. I am _not _suggesting that we make ourselves cry at one of his poetry recitations." He cringed at the thought, Sasuke mirroring him. "Ugh, that would just encourage him; make him think they were actually _good. _No, I was thinking we could just crush his spirit; put an end to it that way," Neji spoke, offhandedly. It seemed as though destroying a person's inner structure was a daily occurrence for the guy.

The Uchiha's eyes widened in mild disbelief. "Are you telling me that you've never tried that before? Because that would have been the _first _thing I would have done, if I was stuck on a team with Fuzzy-eyebrows."

Neji's mouth quirked a bit at the terrible nickname he had heard both Naruto and Sasuke use for Lee. "I _did _try it. It didn't work. He just bounces back." He shook his head, recalling his past efforts, all in vain. "It's infuriating, really. However, I believe that if we concentrate our efforts, you and I will be able to break him. Or at the very least, make him cry tears of actual pain and sadness, instead of those _Youthy_ ones." Neji's eyes hardened, as he stared at a nearby shop. "Just _once _I'd like to see him bawl in despair."

The comment took Sasuke slightly my surprise. Did anyone else realize just how messed up this guy was? Everyone commented on _his _mental problems, but this one; Neji was definitely on equal standing with Sasuke when it came to depraved plotting.

"You have issues. They run very deep. Why don't we get along, again?" Sasuke asked.

Neji raised an eyebrow, in thought. "I'm not entirely sure myself, but I believe it has something to do with us being considered rivals, and also our clans' superiority complexes."

"Right. That's what it was," Sasuke replied, life making sense again, as he recalled the way his relationships---or lack thereof---with others worked.

"Anyway," the Hyuuga began. "I realized that I couldn't cover all the bases necessary for Lee's undoing, by myself. But if we work on this together, I have confidence we will succeed."

"In crushing his spirit?" Sasuke clarified.

"In crushing his spirit," Neji confirmed, with a nod.

A brief moment of uncalled for moral distress plagued Sasuke's mind. But when his thoughts drifted back to what that green-clad freak and his even freakier sensei had subjected him to in that morning alone, his moral distress was flipped into a burning need for vengeance. Hey! Vengeance had been his game plan for the better part of his eighteen-year existence. Old habits die hard, as those ambiguous people, often referred to as "they", say.

"Alright," Sasuke answered. "But I have a condition."

Neji cocked an eyebrow. "And that is…?"

"Gai has to be brought down too," the dark-eyed shinobi said. "He's a maniac. He needs to be dealt with."

At this, Neji smirked. They were most definitely on the same page, the Uchiha and him. "Believe me, if Lee falls, so will Gai. The _Will of Youth_ compels it," the Hyuuga prodigy fairly sneered.

Sasuke gave a smirk of his own, excitement at the prospect of retribution running through his veins.

"What's the plan, then?"

**Guttersnipe's Word: **Well there's chapter 2. Long, I know. But I like when authors give long chapters; it makes waiting for the update worth it. That and I just couldn't find a place to break it up into something smaller. It felt like if I did then I would be giving another chapter where nothing actually happened, which is still sort of the case, I know, but I'm getting there. Don't worry. The plot will arrive soon enough. If you can call the idea behind this thing a plot, that is. And I'm aware that there are no PSAs yet, when the summary and title explicitly state that there would be PSAs. Again, have patience. I'm still working out the kinks of writing a continuation story. I'm used to one-shots.

And something I should mention to avoid being charged with copyright infringement: That little line Sasuke says if his repressed memories become unrepressed---"Mississauga rattlesnakes eat brown bread." That's part of an actual poem called "Rattlesnake Skipping Song" by Dennis Lee. We learned it in Grade One, I think, and it has (unfortunately) stuck with me for the nearly fourteen years since. And it creeps me out, something fierce. I don't know why, it just does. One of my friends used to start reciting it out of nowhere just to get a rise out of me. I cursed him to a dark unpleasantness every time. Anyway, because that poem gives me the willies, I thought, "Hey, why not make it something that had deeply scarred Sasuke too? He was with the creepy Snake Sannin, so it would relate, in a way." So I did.

Anyhoos, please review; it would be greatly appreciated. It doesn't even have to be coherent; just a jumble of misplaced adjectives and pronouns with the odd punctuation mark would suffice. I'm serious. I won't mind. Or type in "paravillintiniay". Seriously. Go for it.


	3. Operation: Green Beast Obliteration

Public Service Announcement

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. That copyright belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

**Warning:** The following story contains _**severe**_ crack! content (including, but not limited to, _**extreme**_ OOCness in certain characters), which may not be appreciated by some readers. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

**Guttersnipe's Foreword:** Don't take the above warning lightly. I _really _mean there is some serious crackage going down in this thing. I was actually extremely nervous to post it. So nervous, that I sat on it for a few days upon completing it before putting it up. I don't want to scare any of you readers off, but let me just make this abundantly clear: Some of you will probably hate me after reading this. It's nothing creepy or gross, or anything; but it _is_ definitely uber-weird. If extreme crack isn't your thing…you will hate me. Basically, I'm asking that you have an open mind when reading this, because this fic is like a plummer; there is crack coming out _everywhere_. Now please read on.

**Chapter 3: Operation: Green Beast Obliteration**

It was simple: Destroy Lee's belief in the power of Youth, destroy both of the mighty Green Beasts of Konoha.

The nefarious plan had already been conceived, hatched in the disturbed genius of one Hyuuga Neji. All he had ever required was an accomplice as twisted and vengeful as himself.

And lo, the return of the final Uchiha heralded the dawn of the Hyuuga prodigy's rise to dominion over the bane of his existence---the so-called _Springtime of Youth_.

Oh, he could already hear the silence of bliss in the wake of those damnable shouts of _Youth's joys_. Yes, the world was looking brighter already.

Now, all that was needed was to enact the carefully crafted assault on Youth.

Operation: Die Youth! Just_ freaking_ _die!!! _And take Gai and Lee _with you!_ For the _love _of my_ sanity, DIE!!! AHHHHH!!!_ was about to commence.

"I told you, that's a retarded name for a covert operation," Sasuke muttered, glaring at the grossly long-winded title scrawled across a manila folder, stamped TOP SECRET, and emblazoned with the Hyuuga and Uchiha crests.

_This guy operates on a whole other level of obsessive, _Sasuke thought.

"Well, _you _come up with a better name then," Neji sniffed, clearly insulted that his partner in crime disliked his _freaking awesome_ title. Not _only _did it tell of the objective of the "operation," but it also conveyed the Hyuuga's feelings on the issue. _How _could anyone _not _appreciate the versatility of it?

"It has to be concise, yet apt," Sasuke said, eyes looking off to the side, an innocent hairline crack receiving an unwarranted glower, causing it to widen marginally from the intensity. Poor wall… "Operation: Green Beast Obliteration, that's what it should be."

Neji opened his mouth to shoot down the other shinobi's new name for their plan, but had to close it soon after.

_Crap!_ That _was _a good name.

"Fine," the Hyuuga grumbled. He pulled out a pen and sulkily scribbled out his ample title, then scripted in the Uchiha's breath-saving designation.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the older male's pity party, while internally gloating over his victory. Yes, he _was _all that and a fresh bout of vengeance!

"Moving on," Neji snipped out, obviously still huffy.

(_Drama queen!_)

He eyed Sasuke evenly. "You understand your place in this?"

"Aa," the Uchiha responded, meeting the Hyuuga's gaze with a look of anticipation. Victory was nigh. He could almost taste it.

"Then it is time to initiate Operation: Die Youth! Jus---"

"Neji."

The addressed man stopped and eyed Sasuke with a confused scowl. When realization dawned on him, his scowl only deepened as he amended, "It's time to initiate Operation: Green Beast Obliteration." He trailed off with a few incoherent grumbles, causing his companion to roll his eyes again before setting off to carry out his role in the plan.

* * *

_This is it. The first step to the destruction of the _mighty _Green Beasts._

Sasuke was savouring the thoughts of Lee and Gai's imminent downfall. It would be one of his greatest achievements, second only to destroying Itachi. But even the eventual restoration of his clan could only ever tie with his victory over the Green Beasts---never surpass it---because it would just be _that _epic.

Oh yes! Things were looking up for Mr. Avenger-person. There was just _one _thing standing in the way of his happily ever after. Or more specifically, one _person_. One person stood between him and a life free of spontaneous sunsets and equally spontaneous _manly _tears.

Sakura.

That was Sasuke's part of the plan. While Neji sabotaged Lee's Green Spandex Jumpsuits and saw to it that the wide-eyed boy's self-enforced disciplines were not met, Sasuke was to crush his hopes of winning 'the radiant heart of the Youthful Sakura-san' by asking the girl out himself. These plans had to be implemented simultaneously to be effective. That way Lee's Youth-building/preservation exercises would be nulled through Neji's efforts, and the younger Green Beast would not be able to bounce back with inspiration from his burning love for Sakura, as she would already be taken by his other rival, Sasuke. Lee would not be able to recuperate. Even with Gai's ever-blazing inspiration, the Rock would be irrevocably cracked, as his goals and glory would continue to spiral out of reach.

Rock Lee would be ruined. And with him, Maito Gai's Eternal Fire of Youth would flicker out as well. That was the sensei's self-declared fate, after all. He would stick with his student until the end, sharing in the same finale as his protégé.

Now… All that the final Uchiha had to do was…actually _ask _Sakura out. That was it. … … … Yep. That was _all _he had to do… … … That was it. Nothing more… … … … Just go on over there and ask the girl out. … … … … No big deal. Not a big deal at all. … … … … … … …

Maybe he could come back tomorrow?

No! He had to do this _now_. Putting it off would be the coward's way out, and Uchiha Sasuke was no coward! Vengeful and pissy to a fault, but most definitely _not_ a coward.

Just as he was moving toward his pink-haired team-mate, who was just stepping out of the Yamanaka flower shop, a cloud of smoke blocked his vision and materialized to become his porn-loving sensei.

"Yo," Kakashi greeted, raising a hand while the other held the aforementioned smut.

"Hn," Sasuke answered, glaring mildly at the older man while trying to keep Sakura in his peripheral. He did _not _need this distraction! He had just succeeded in bolstering himself (_not _that he was scared of asking Sakura out, or anything!) and then what do you know?! Kakashi had to show up and ruin the moment when he was about to spring into action.

"Well, I can see you have yet to take to Gai's teachings of Youth, otherwise I would have been glomped in a teary-eyed hug, isn't that about right?" Kakashi said, smiling in that closed-eye way of his.

Sasuke gave a disgruntled sigh and said, "Aa."

The sensei gave a low chuckle at the near-pout upon his wayward protégé's face.

"But really, Sasuke," Kakashi began, speaking lowly and eyeing the teen with a rare serious look. "Don't let it get to you. It's only five months."

"Tch," Sasuke snorted. "Five months? I've scarcely spent five _days_ in their company and I'm already entertaining thoughts of offing myself."

"Now, now," the grey-head placated. "Naruto and Sakura would be beside themselves with grief, after having _just _gotten you back home, if you did that. You may say you don't care, but I think we both know that they deserve better than that."

The dark-head did not answer, but cast a dark look to the ground and caught sight of a slowly departing Sakura in the corner of his vision.

The Copy-nin's sharp eye picked up on this, of course, and true to form, he could not but tease the stoic boy before him.

"You know, she won't _actually_ beat your bones to powder, like Naruto has been telling you she will. Sakura has learned to reign in her rage over the past few years. And though she has been quietly simmering over your departure, I'm sure you'll be able to get off with only a hearty punch to the face, or maybe even a skin-splitting slap, if you were to, oh I don't know, ask her out…" Kakashi trailed off slyly.

Sasuke scowled at the masked man before him, which just made said man chuckle again.

"Don't be stupid. Pfft. Why would I want to ask _Sakura _out?" the ex-avenger muttered, while ever-so subtly keeping the pink-haired kunoichi in question within his sight.

"Well, it was just a suggestion, Sasuke. I'm just letting you know that you probably don't need to be as afraid of approaching her about it as you seem to be," Kakashi answered, a smile evident in his voice.

"Even if I _was _going to ask Sakura out---which I'm not!" Sasuke's eyes snapped smartly onto his sensei. "I wouldn't be afraid of doing so."

"Okay, then Sasuke," Kakashi ceded, turning his eye back on his beloved hentai material and beginning to walk away. "But if you're not interested in asking her out, then I would suggest that you stop following her around. Stalking will do _nothing_ for your friendship."

The Uchiha snapped his head up to glare incredulously at the older man, but found that Kakashi had disappeared from sight.

How in the world had the old pervert known Sasuke had been following Sakura around? Unless the sensei had been following her around too… _Eww_. No. It was more likely that he had been following Sasuke around, keeping an eye on him, and had been passively observing his very, very sad activities of, well, _following Sakura_ around (stalking was such an ugly word. It was not as though Sasuke planned on skinning her and wearing her flesh as a suit, or something weird like that).

"Tch, afraid of asking _Sakura_ out," Sasuke muttered under his breath. "_Please_."

Looking up, the former missing-nin noticed that a certain female team-mate of his was no longer within view.

Cursing Kakashi internally, for distracting him with, well, the _truth_ (though Mr. Avenger-person would never admit _that_), Sasuke quickly took off in the direction he had last seen Sakura heading, while making certain his quarry did _not _know of his trailing presence.

It was _not _fear, people! Just caution. As well as pickup line fabricating time. Maybe he should have just sucked it up and confided in Kakashi. The old perv could have given him some lines to use on Sakura. _Not _that he needed help, or anything. _Nooo_, of course not! Everything would be fine.

"Sasuke-kun! My eternal rival number two! There you are!"

_**CRAP!!! JUST FREAKING… CRAP!!!**_

It was official: the universe hated Uchiha Sasuke. Just straight up _hated_ him.

One half of his most loathed (_living_) thing leapt into the street before him, effectively blocking the sight of a still oblivious Sakura, as she continued on her merry.

There stood (_posed_) Rock Lee, the very man Sasuke was currently trying to _destroy_.

Sasuke had to clench his hands into fists to keep himself from throwing a rather undignified hissy-fit over his continued misfortune in his quest for the Green Beasts' undoing.

Naturally, Lee's innocent mind was completely unaware of his companion's distress and went on to add to Sasuke's ire with his continued presence.

Flashing a radiant smile, the Rock said, "Finally I have found you, my Youth-deficient friend! I have something to show you!" Here his smile ping!ed. _Ping!ed_. (And that exclamation mark is not there by accident people. Because it honest to goodness ping!ed. A part of Sasuke wanted to know how Gai and Lee did that, but the other (_vengeful, pissed off, murderous_) part found it to be one of _the _most annoying things about the emotive duo.)

"Lee, this had better be good," spoke another voice behind them.

Sasuke turned to see none other than his partner in crime, Hyuuga Neji, walking over, apparently following the overly bouncy Lee.

Sasuke gave him a meaningful glare that asked, "What the hell are you doing? Why is he still so uppity? Haven't you been sticking to your schedule of sabotage?"

Neji stopped next to the Uchiha and murmured under his breath, "I've already finished with the spandex element. Now, he's only got the one he's currently wearing. He doesn't know that yet, which is why he's still so…_Lee_."

"And what about the self-enforced nonsense?" Sasuke muttered back, lips barely moving.

"I've already impeded three, but I'm afraid I could not find a way to stop this one," the Hyuuga answered sourly, his face darkening in a stormy scowl.

"This one?" Sasuke repeated. "Why? What's he doing?"

"Yosh! This is it, my esteemed rivals!" Lee shouted, joyous streams flowing from his face as light from the brightest of stars. "Today I shall read to you a work of poetic genius that is sure to inspire tears from the most hardened of hearts." He stared intently at each of his companions. "Remember, should my poem fail to draw tears from you two, my Youthphobic comrades, I will have to hug every tree in the western forest while carrying fifty pound weights on each arm. Yosh!" Lee struck his "Vow of Youth" pose and cried, "The Power of Youth with its blazing Fire will not fail me now!"

The two pale shinobi cringed in unison. There was no justice in the world. If there were, Lee would hate poetry and fear the 'blazing Fire of Youth.' They would not have to suffer through something as horrible and scarring as listening to yet another one of the taijutsu expert's poems. Dear goodness! Had not they both suffered enough?!

Apparently not, for Lee soon began his _ultimate_ work of poetic _genius_.

"I call this poem, 'Ode upon A Cherry Blossom's Springtime of Youth'," Lee said, looking serious and 'inspired' as he glanced at a piece of green parchment before staring off into the distance, as though lost in his own little world (which was not entirely impossible).

Initially, when Lee began his recitation, both Hyuuga and Uchiha nins rolled their eyes at the Rock's emotive gestures and overly pretty words. It was so _sappy_, both Neji and Sasuke were beginning to feel icky.

But somewhere halfway through the assault on their sanity, a strange sensation began to build-up within the two sceptical shinobi. A foreign and highly disturbing _pressure_ seemed to be building up behind their eyes, as an alien form took residence in their throats. A heavy ache seemed to materialize out of nowhere in their chests, stabbing painfully with each heartbeat. And as Lee read on, lost in a lyrical world of Sakura blossoms and like-named, like-coloured kunoichis, the beguiling feelings that were waging a hostile takeover on the other two ninjas grew steadily stronger.

Each new stanza brought with it more disturbing and marginally frightening…_feelings_ that sent the two shinobi's minds into severe disarray.

By the time Lee had finished his epic, the audience of two was finally bordering on realization of the new sensations plaguing them so heinously. And with that realization, came a new wave of horror.

Because neither Hyuuga Neji nor Uchiha Sasuke was ever, or _would_ ever be emotionally _moved _by a piece of _poetry_. No way. Just. No. Way.

"I, ah, I used the Byakugan a lot in training today. Working on pushing my limits to see further," Neji muttered, while attempting to inconspicuously swipe at his overly clear eyes and curiously runny nose.

"Yeah, uh," Sasuke coughed, as though to clear a (_nonexistent!_) lump from his throat. "I strained my Sharingan today, watching Gai's speed training and taijutsu." He sniffed as quietly as humanly possible. "He's really fast, so, you know…the _strain_ on my eyes…it makes sense that they might get a little…_not watery_, just…_moist_."

"Yeah," Neji nodded, clearing his throat and rapidly blinking his eyes as he stared up at the overcast sky. "I mean, that's all that's going on with my eyes. They're just gathering a _little _extra moisture to help, uh…_soothe_ my overworked eyes. That's all." He coughed nervously.

"Yeah. I hear you," Sasuke muttered, carefully checking his surroundings for observers by glowering in every direction.

Lee's face looked to be on the verge of shattering into millions of little pieces. He clutched the green parchment that contained his tour de force tightly to his chest, which heaved in its green spandex sheath as though he had just finished up a hard cardio workout. Crystalline tears amassed in the man's round eyes in impossibly large pools that seemed to defy the laws of gravity, as they did not fall, even after the liquid had collected to fill a space three times that of his eyes (it had to be those heavy bottom eyelashes). His bottom lip was caught between his teeth, though it still quivered uncontrollably. It was painfully obvious that the full-grown man of nineteen years, was about to break out bawling.

"You… You…didn't…" Lee stuttered out between silent sobs that sent his shoulders heaving. "You did not _cryyy_," he managed to whimper out.

Then out of nowhere, the Green Beast broke into the most disturbing wail either Neji or Sasuke had ever heard in their lives.

"_Eeeiiiii…i…i…i…_" Lee…well, _squealed_ would be an appropriate description. The sound started out sharp and high, but petered out into what could only be described as the sound of a cat caught in the gears of some machine, underlain with the death rattle of a _very_ old goat.

If the description sounds disturbing and nearly unimaginable, then just think of what it was like for Neji and Sasuke, as they listened to it over and over for the next five minutes, seemingly riveted to the spot by the horrific noise escaping Lee's mouth, like sailors compelled by the song of a siren. Only in this case, the song was not even of the same _universe_ as beautiful and they were not so much _drawn _to the tune as they were _reviled_ and _horrified_ into an unwilling submission.

After the longest and most torturous five minutes of their lives, Sasuke and Neji were given a blessed reprieve from the auditory assault, when Lee's squealing lament died out into quiet mumblings.

"First my self-enforced disciplines and now this… What am I doing wrong? Has Youth forsaken me? No! I must not think that. I must not think that. The Power of Youth will get me through this. It will! I have faith! My Blaze of Youth will shine brightly, illuminating my Springtime of Youth! It will! It will…" was what the two conspiring shinobi heard in Lee's mumblings, as they remained glued to their spots and watched the Rock go through the beginnings of a mental breakdown.

Leaning ever so slightly nearer to Neji, Sasuke muttered quietly, "I didn't expect it to work this quickly. And this is only from his botched self-enforced disciplines. The spandex and Sakura haven't even come into play yet. This is going to be easier than you made it out to be."

Neji scoffed and spoke lowly, "Lee is chronically optimistic. He will run through every aspect of his life until he finds something that can 'stoke his Youthful Fire' when something else has dampened it. He will rebound right away."

No sooner had the words left the Hyuuga's lips that Lee's sombre mood turned to sparkles and sunshine in the blink of an eye.

"Yosh! That's it!" he shouted, making everyone within a five block radius cringe at the intensity. Lee turned his suddenly burning eyes upon his two companions and proclaimed, "My Flame of Youth requires some Youthful inspiration! I wrote this poem without my fair muse by my side! What a foolish thing for me to do!" He slapped his forehead, though his face broke into a large, shiny smile. "How could I possibly have captured the essence of my muse if she was not with me when I set out to compose a work about her radiance?! I couldn't, of course! Oh, silly me!" He whirled about and struck the "Manly Man" pose. "I shall find my fairest Sakura-san and ask that she accompany me while I compose a poetic work on the gloriousness of her Youthful Fire!"

Sasuke nudged the Hyuuga beside him and 'ahemed' while jerking his head meaningfully at the spandex-sporting ninja before them. Lee seemed to be on the verge of taking off to find Sakura, which just might lead to him completing _another _poem. There was just _no way_ Sasuke was suffering through that again.

Neji immediately caught on and called for his team-mate's attention.

"Yes, Neji-kun?" Lee answered, turning back to face his addressor.

"Ah…" Neji trailed off, not really having anything to say. His mind frantically searched for any lie to tell him to keep him where he was. Heck, he would even tell him a _truth_ if he could think of one. Suddenly, the perfect union of truth and lie formed within his mind. "Shouldn't you stay with Sasuke? Gai will be along any moment now for the community service he has arranged for today. Do you really want to miss that?"

_Oh, I am _so _smooth. He won't be able to resist the prospect of making Gai happy and partaking in the activities he has planned. I'll have thwarted another self-enforced discipline _and_ saved Uchiha's butt from screwing up his part of the deal concerning Haruno-san._

It was obvious that the big-eyed boy was torn. Sakura-san and the completion of his vow, or Gai-sensei and the Youth-building exercises that would surely strengthen his place in the Springtime of Youth. It was so difficult for the young man. But deep down, he knew what he must do.

Only slightly deflated, Lee said, "Yes, you are right Neji-kun. I must remain with Sasuke-kun so that I may aid Gai-sensei in his re-Youthifying of our wayward charge. Thank you for reminding me of my duties."

Sasuke scowled at being referred to as "wayward." Everyone kept calling him that. He was not wayward, people! He was very much warding on the straight and narrow. His brother was dead; he had no further reason for being associated with unscrupulous characters, as he had been in the past, so it was not like he was planning on seeking out some other winner of S-rank criminal fame.

_Yes_, there was the _tiny _detail of him _not _returning back to Konoha of his own accord, even after his brother's death. So he wanted to do a little sight-seeing before he was incarcerated for (what he thought was going to be) a really long time or possibly executed; was that so bad? He had not been out much in the previous few years; he just wanted to live a little! And so what if he (_violently_) resisted capture when Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi had finally found him, lazing about on a beach in some no-name country? They were getting in his sun, man! Everyone always commented on how pale he was; he just thought he would get a little colour, just to see what it was like. But _apparently_ getting an even tan was _not_ an acceptable excuse for his former team-mates, because they just would _not _listen to it! Sasuke had had to _suffer_ with unsightly tan-lines for _weeks_ while he was incarcerated before his sentencing. And now that he was out, he was as pasty white as he had ever been. And that was why people thought he was a stubborn, unchanging jerk; they just never allowed his attempts at change to come to fruition. See? It was _their _fault. (Sasuke's favourite drug cocktail: Denial with a dash of Scapegoating. Nothing got him through a day quite like it.)

"There you are, my new Youth-deficient student! I hope you are ready for the intense Youth-building activity I have set up for us today! If it doesn't get you Youthed-up, I don't know what will!"

Slowly, like a prisoner on his final walk to the gallows, Sasuke turned his head to see his probation officer, Maito Gai, _strutting _toward him. He could only imagine (_with extremely graphic and grisly detail_) what _horrors _lay in store for him that day; what manner of _evil _lay behind that blinding white smile; how _scarred _his mind would be, come evening.

Little did he know just how macabre his fate would be…

* * *

In Ichiraku Ramen Bar, two team-mates sat next to each other, attempting to enjoy a nice meal of, well, _ramen_. Actually, _one _of them was trying to enjoy their meal. The other one was seeing to it that that did _not_ happen. The low buzz of a newly installed television set was completely drowned out by the less than enjoyable argument the two companions were so heatedly engaged in. 

"But seriously, Sakura-chan; we can't let this stand. I just will not accept it any longer!"

"Naruto, there is nothing you can do about it, so just drop it already."

"But Sakura-chan, it isn't right!"

"Who says?"

"I says, that's who, dattebayo! It should be part of his sentence!"

"_Why_ would that be part of his sentence? It has nothing to do with anything!"

"It has _everything_ to do with everything!" A tower of bowls clinked as the counter shook from a heavy fist. "Sakura-chan! How can you not understand this? Personally, I feel that this is central to the teme's rehabilitation and punishment!"

"What purpose would it serve, Naruto?"

"Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan. Sweet, naïve Sakura-chan. It would serve to properly _humiliate_ him, that's what, dattebayo! What other reason does there have to be?!"

"Naruto! Sasuke-kun is _already_ enduring enough humiliation with all of the menial work he has been ordered to do. I mean, he has been delivering papers, cleaning the streets and parks, planting fields, servicing farms, running countless errands for anyone and everyone. He has to do more crappy work than we did as genin! For someone like Sasuke-kun, that is more than humiliating, it's also extremely frustrating that he cannot train nor do any shinobi related work. He has been hardcore training and using his shinobi skills ceaselessly for the past five years, and plus; this must be _extremely_ constraining for him."

"But this would make it that much _more_ humiliating! Come on, Sakura-chan! I'm going to march over to Baa-chan and tell her she needs to order Sasuke-teme to wear the Green Spandex Jumpsuit!"

Sakura let out a longsuffering sigh. "Naruto, there is no way you will convince Tsunade-sama to order Sasuke-kun to wear that jumpsuit! And there is _absolutely_ no way, _ever_, that Gai-sensei will get him to wear it of his own volition, so just drop it!"

While Naruto pouted and plotted some way to prove Sakura wrong and Sakura went back to her meal, the program on the television switched to a commercial. The sound was quiet, but in the blessed silence that followed Sakura's destruction of Naruto's dream, one could hear a pin drop. That and even if the television set had been muted completely, the duo that had just popped up on screen would have still been audible, they were _that _loud. Yes, it was none other than the Beautiful Green Beasts of Konoha!

_On the television:_

Sunny, happy music set the scene, as a disgustingly designed room with squares of every shade of green imaginable, with the odd dash of neon orange circles on the walls, filled the screen. Then, out of the camouflage that the like colours afforded them, the mighty pair of green-clad ninjas emerged, standing proud and _manly_, with bright smiles on their faces.

"Greetings fair citizens of the mighty and ever-Youthful Konoha! I am Rock Lee, and this is the greatest and _hippest_ sensei in all of Fire Country, Maito Gai-sensei!" He gestured to the man on his right.

"Thank you for that fiery introduction, Lee!" Gai stared intently into the camera and said, "You _know _it's true, my eternal rival, Hatake Kakashi!" He then resumed his "normal" stance. "What my wonderful student and I are here to talk to you about today is a terrifying trend plaguing today's youth. I am of course talking about the dangers of _emo_."

A trill of foreboding music hung from Gai's last word for about five seconds. The happy tune then resumed as the scene switched to a video, seemingly taken with a hidden camera. It was a video of Sasuke leaning against a wall doing…well, _brooding_, with the text "EMO VICTIM" in the top left-hand corner in neon orange lettering.

"Here we have a prime example of a victim of emo," Gai said, his boisterous voice overly subdued. "Lee, why don't you explain some physical symptoms to the audience."

"Yosh, Gai-sensei!" Lee shouted as he gave his trademark salute. A still image of the Sasuke video appeared on screen as Lee began his lecture. "Here we see the most noticeable signs that emo has taken hold: Semi-long, dark hair that, at first glance, seems unkempt, but is in fact the result of intense styling, including the use of a flatiron, hair wax, and approximately zero-point-six hours of manipulation." Green circles and arrows appeared on the picture, as Lee highlighted the key areas of the "emo hair" with a computer stylus. "This Unyouthful hairstyle covers the eyes almost entirely. Research has shown that this technique is used to prevent most people from attempting eye contact with the emo victim, thus furthering the emotional distance between the victim and the Youthful people, which only amplifies the effects of this affliction. It is clearly a perpetual motion machine of emo." The scene changed to Lee standing by a screen with a new picture of "emo" Sasuke. "Next we have the "emo stance." The characteristics of this are slightly slouched shoulders, head tilted down, hands in pockets, and more often than not, leaning against something, like a wall or a bridge railing, as we see in our example," Lee spoke, indicating the areas of interest with a telescopic pointer. The camera made a close-up of Lee's earnest face as he said, "This stance too is a separatist measure that creates Unyouthful boundaries between the victim and his companions."

The scene suddenly switched to Gai, who was standing by a board with yet another picture of a brooding Sasuke and cardboard stickers placed about the image, all containing words, like "Hn," "Aa," and "Tch."

"One of the telltale signs of emo is in the victim's speech patterns," Gai began, looking as serious as ever as he stared intently into the very close camera. "Emo-sufferers have a very small verbal capacity; one can only assume is a result of their doused Fire of Youth. After all, nothing gets the vocabulary populated like the Blazing Flame of Youth within your soul! But the Downpour of Unyouthful Despair, or the DUDs, steals the excitement and zest of the Springtime of Youth from emo victims' lives. It causes Youthful terms, like "Yosh, Gai-sensei!" "The Power of Youth prevails!" and "The Green Spandex Jumpsuit is my saviour!" to be lost from these _unfortunate_ people's vocabularies, instead being replaced with the very Unyouthful words, "Hn," "Aa," and "Tch."" He pointed to each cardboard sticker word on the board as he said them, the camera zooming in on the terms. "Despite the origins of the term "emo"--- from the word "emotional," to describe the intense public emotional displays of the victims---today's emo-sufferers do the direct opposite of that; they attempt to smother all emotion and present a cold façade, interrupted by severe outbursts involving the terribly Unyouthful emotions of hate, anger, and "_pissiness_,"" Gai said, doing air commas on 'pissiness.'

"Now let's hear a real life personal account of a rehabilitated victim of emo," Lee said, after the camera switched to him.

An emotional piece of music began playing as the scene changed to a park area where a _very _familiar looking figure sat, feeding squirrels, while decked out in full GSJ ensemble. Yes, it was_ indeed_ Uchiha Sasuke.

"I guess I just never knew how big of a problem it was, you know? I had a tough childhood; I thought my…_behaviour _was normal. I had no idea that emo was ruining my life. It got to the point where I would look in the mirror and I didn't even recognize myself anymore. Not because I had changed so much _inside_---it was all of the _hair_ in my eyes; I _literally_ couldn't see my reflection. But not anymore. The Bowl-cut of Youth ensures that!" He pointed to the horrific new hairdo he was sporting; a perfect replica of Gai and Lee's hair. "I just…I feel so much freer now." He seemed to tear up, as he sniffled slightly and waved a dismissive hand. "This isn't an emo outburst; this is the Power of Youth flowing through me." He took a deep inhale and then exhaled slowly. "It's so invigorating."

The scene then switched to Gai and Lee, with Sasuke between them, all looking like triplets in their GSJs.

"So remember folks," Lee spoke, with a friendly arm around his new twin, "emo is _not_ a joke. It is _real_, it is _painful_, and it is _ruining_ lives."

Gai then said, "So protect yourself, Konoha. Stoke the Coals of Youth to keep your Flame of Youth eternal and bright."

"Wear a Green Spandex Jumpsuit!" all three males shouted as they each gave a "Good Guy" pose to the camera with ping!ing smiles.

A very fast-paced voiceover said, "This public service announcement brought to you by Konoha Public Affairs, in association with Youth Enterprises ©. Youth Enterprises ©: Bringing you the full Power of Youth since the Springtime of Youth was emerging from winter. ™

_Back in the ramen shop:_

Silence like that of the great void of space filled the ramen stand. No one moved. No one breathed. The smell of burning ramen filled the air but even the chef was so…_horrified_ would be an appropriate description, that he ignored it completely.

_(Somewhere in her office, lost under mountains of paperwork, an inebriated Hokage was looking back and forth between her TV and her sake bottle, a look of hurt and betrayal in her eyes as she gazed upon her precious beverage. She subsequently called for Shizune to take the alcohol away, finally convinced of its evils.)_

Very slowly, Naruto turned his face to the sky and clasped his hands before him as he mouthed, "Thank you," to the heavens, after which he broke into a full-blown laughing fit, falling off of his stool in the process.

"It's official!" he screamed between high-pitched giggles. "Sasuke-teme is hereby officially known as Emo-eyebrows!!! _AH HA HA HA!!!_"

Sakura remained rooted to the spot, completely dumbstruck at what her widened eyes had just seen.

_Sasuke-kun… Sasuke-kun actually wore the spandex jumpsuit?! What… How… Does he have some strange fetish for bad fashion choices? First the purple rope bow-belt, now this… _

_No, this doesn't seem like Sasuke-kun. They had to have done something to him to get him into that…_outfit. _But what?_

Sakura was pulled from her internal reasoning of Sasuke's behaviour, by a greeting that could only come from one person.

"Greetings Sakura-san! Are you having quite a lovely day?"

Sakura turned around, fully expecting to find Lee looking at her with barely restrained excitement, as he was no doubt there to request yet another date that she would decline yet again.

But what she found was not Lee. And it shocked her system far more than the PSA from a few moments before had.

There, _posing _before her very eyes, was a fully-Green Spandex Jumpsuited, bowl-cut sporting Uchiha Sasuke.

Here, Naruto would have literally _died_ from his laughing fit, had the Kyuubi not opted to forcibly regulate the jinchuuriki's breathing for him, so as to prevent hyperventilation from taking over.

"Sasu…ke…kun?" Sakura managed to breathe out, as she stared in wide-eyed astonishment at her long-time crush. Her long-time crush who was currently doing the best cosplay of one of her most dedicated and not-so-secret admirers, that there had ever been. It was a…_unique _sight, to be sure.

Having managed to drag himself back up onto his stool, Naruto managed to say, between laughing fits and intense stomach-holding, "So! Tsunade-baa-chan _did_ order you to wear the Green Beast getup, hey teme?!"

Sasuke's _oddly_ emotive face shifted into a look of innocent confusion, looking more like Lee with every passing emotion that flickered across his usually stoic façade. "Tsunade-sama did not order me to do any such thing, Naruto-kun."

This jarred Naruto right out of his laughing fit. "Uh…_sooo…_Super-eyebrows convinced you, then?" Naruto half-mumbled, quite thrown by Sasuke addressing him with the honorific.

"Not at all, Naruto-kun!" the Uchiha responded, a just plain _disturbing _smile splitting his lips. "I _chose_ to wear this beautiful piece of tailorly craftsmanship! It is quite comfortable, you know." He watched Naruto with curiously wide eyes, not a trace of malice or ire evident in his gaze.

Naruto felt an uncontrollable shiver shimmy up and down his spine. This was _not _what the jinchuuriki boy had been expecting when he thought of Sasuke going deep in full Green Beast regalia. He expected---and was _really _looking forward to---Sasuke hating every moment of being forced into the spandex cocoon he was currently sporting so _proudly_.

"Uh…yeah, I know. I have one stored away for safekeeping, actually," he muttered with an awkward cough.

"You do?! You should break it out and wear it! We could make it a team thing!"

And _this_ was where Naruto began to realize that Gai and Lee were _quite_ diabolical. It was the only explanation for his best friend's behaviour. The Green Beasts of Konoha _brainwashed_ Sasuke, thus making him their triplet. Naruto would never see the uniquely-eyebrowed duo the same again.

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura called, managing to find her voice, despite the continued shock to her system. "Are you okay? You don't have to act in front of us."

The addressed teen turned overly bright eyes upon the kunoichi, a terrifyingly sweet smile curving his face into an expression it probably hadn't displayed since pre-massacre days.

Both Naruto and Sakura leapt back a foot.

"I am quite wonderful today, Sakura-san. Thank you for asking." He stepped closer, causing his team-mates' eyes to widen inversely to the change in distance between them. "I actually came to make a request of you," he spoke earnestly, nodding with hopefulness upon his face.

"W-Wh-What is it, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura squeaked out, her breathing bordering on nonexistent.

Naruto watched on in a tortured silence, his mind lost in a near-limbo state.

"I wish to ask for your company on a social outing wherein we might converse and revel in the Springtime of our Youth."

Here, Naruto fainted. Literally. He dropped to the floor, face smacking into the boards with a heavy thump, not to regain consciousness for a good two hours, and even then, only with the help of a resourceful Hinata. (The girl fainted enough in her life, she had a plentiful stock of smelling salts to help consciousness roll around. Naruto required her most pungent stash, he was so out of it.)

Sakura didn't even notice her blonde companion's rather loud fall. She was stunned speechless by the whole situation.

Eventually, she managed to ask, "A-A-A-Are y-you asking me on a date?"

"Yes!" Sasuke nearly shouted, flashing a bright smile.

If Sakura were not so bewildered, she would have been swooning.

"That is what I am asking, Sakura-san. Will you go on a date with me?"

He looked so _expectant_ and…_hopeful_.

And then it hit her. It was _so_ obvious.

"Lee-san," Sakura began, calmly, "you can use chakra now?" This was quite obviously Lee in henge form, masquerading as Sasuke in another attempt to get her to date him. Why hadn't she seen it sooner? Somehow, the boy had developed the use of chakra and had subsequently learned henge. Sakura felt mildly foolish for believing that she was actually talking to Sasuke, and also felt mildly disappointed that it wasn't really him asking her for a date.

"Sasuke" quirked his eyebrows, frowning at the girl's question. Shaking his head, he answered, "I am not Lee-kun, Sakura-san. I am Sasuke."

"Lee-san, you don't have to keep up the charade. I know it's you."

"I am not Lee-kun, Sakura-san! I swear it! I'll make you a vow with the "Good Guy" pose, if it will make you believe me!" "Sasuke" insisted.

Sakura nearly laughed at that. If there was one thing that could prove it was Lee before her and not Sasuke, it was the "Good Guy" pose. Only Lee would use it with such reverence.

"Lee-san, really, you can stop now. I won't be mad if you admit that you've henged into Sasuke-kun. Really, you did a pretty good job," Sakura sighed, smiling tiredly at the impostor before her.

Now "Sasuke" looked upset. He frowned deeply and his eyes looked to be nearly sorrowful in their trouble. "I am _not_ Lee-kun, Sakura-san! Really, I'm not! I'll prove it to you!" He paused and looked off to the side, face intense as he seemed to be glaring at a pole, due to his frown still being in place.

Sakura almost gasped. The look was so Sasuke-like---you know, _excluding_ the GSJ and bowl-cut---that she almost began believing the boy's claims to being the real Sasuke. Almost.

A light seemed to go on in the shinobi's mind, as he looked up at his companion with a determined and mildly triumphant gleam in his eye. The look was almost arrogant, which again seemed quite in line with Sasuke's behaviour. Sakura's unease was gradually returning with the advent of these very familiar actions.

"The night I left for that _terribly_ Unyouthful man's place, you came out to try to convince me to stay. You confessed to loving me with all of your heart and---"

"Stop!" Sakura shouted, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. The surreal atmosphere of the situation came crashing down upon her mind like a tidal wave. This was Sasuke. He was the only other person who knew about _that_. This was the _real _Uchiha Sasuke, dressed in a Green Spandex Jumpsuit, hair cut in the bowl style, _smiling_, using honorifics, making references to Youth, being…_nice_, asking Haruno Sakura on a _date_.

Either Loki was laughing his butt off somewhere in Scandinavia, or someone drugged Sakura's ramen and this was all a psychedelic-induced dream. There could be no other explanations.

She did not have any more time to think upon those possibilities, as in the next few seconds, she found herself passed out on the floorboards, next to a drooling Naruto.

* * *

"Gai." 

"Oh! Kakashi! My eternal rival! This is quite serendipitous! I was just on my way to find you! I wish to challenge you to another battle! I will not stand for this tie of ours any longer!"

"Yeah, okay. Maybe later. I have something I need to discuss with you, if you please," Kakashi spoke lowly, all easy-going boredom absent from his being.

"Well, of course, my rival! I am a sportsmanlike man, after all! So, what is it you would like to discuss?" Gai boomed, apparently not picking up on his companion's lack of amiability.

"Yes, about that," Kakashi began. He 'ahemed' slightly and then said, "What the _hell_ did you do to Sasuke?!"

Gai made a distasteful face and wagged his finger at the other man. "Now, now, Kakashi. Is such harsh language _really _necessary? You could have said "heck" or just "what _did _you do," instead of the _very _Unyouthful H-E-double hockey sticks."

"Gai."

"Yes, Kakashi?" the taijutsu expert asked, a smile flashing across his face.

"Shut the hell up."

Gai let loose a longsuffering sigh, but Kakashi went on with his case before the green-clad shinobi could reprimand him again.

"Sasuke, come here," Kakashi called.

Out of nowhere, the Uchiha sprang forth, looking to fulfill whatever duty his sensei saw fit to charge him with.

Kakashi collapsed internally. That was a Lee move, to pop up out of nowhere at his sensei's beck and call. Oh, all things sweet and true, this was a nightmare! His already grey head was turning whiter by the minute, his stress levels were so high.

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei?" Sasuke asked, expectant eyes wide and trained unerringly on the Hatake.

Kakashi stared at his protégé for a few silent moments, his lone eye wide in the most open display of terror the Copy-nin had ever shown.

Turning to Gai, he spoke not with a little urgency, "See that? Did you hear what he just said? _What_ did you do to him?"

The Green Beast puffed up his chest and closed his eyes, all prideful, as he answered, "Well, I just showed him the Way of Youth."

"_No_, you _broke _him, that's what you did," the grey-head insisted. "You broke him, now you will fix him!"

"What?" Gai stared at Kakashi, clearly not following the other man's reasoning. "Because he is now more Youthful than you, you wish for him to go back to his gloomy self?"

"No," Kakashi spoke slowly, casting another wary look at his student. "Because he just called me "sensei" and Sasuke does _not _call me sensei."

"So he has learned respect and manners. It's a step up," Gai shrugged.

"But I prefer it the other way. I'm…_used_ to it. This just creeps me out. It's like having _you _call me sensei." An involuntary shudder rippled through Kakashi's spine.

"Nonesense!" Gai said, clapping the oblivious Uchiha on the shoulder. "I've just done my job _very_ well! I was to rehabilitate this bad apple, and rehabilitate him I have! I think _someone's_ just a tad bit jealous that he could not keep his protégé in line and that someone else had to do it for him." Gai gave Kakashi a pointed look, superiority shining from his thickly eyebrowed eyes.

Kakashi narrowed his lone eye on the other man. He was about to say something rather scathing to the overly jolly ninja, but was interrupted by the topic of their discussion.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke spoke, voice subdued and…_ugh, placating._

He was watching Kakashi with sincere eyes and it was all the Copy-nin could do to _not_ shake the boy while screaming in his face.

"Gai-sensei has helped me get over my angsty past. I am no longer weighed down by the Unyouthfulness of emo. I am free, Kakashi-sensei." He searched his teacher's face for an understanding that would never come. "Please understand, I have great respect for you as my first sensei, and I actually wish to apologize for ignoring your direction those many years ago, when you told me not to seek out vengeance. I should have shown you more respect and honoured your wishes. I understand if you do not wish to forgive me, but I do humbly ask for it." He tilted his head down, a stance of humility overtaking his body.

And Kakashi was ready to breakdown in a fit of horror and mental distress. What manner of madness was at work here? Could Gai really have done this? Though those questions spun about his mind, there was little doubt that Gai was indeed responsible.

"See!" the Green Beast exclaimed, slapping Kakashi on the back. "He's perfectly fine! You even got an apology out of it! How about that?! Is Youth great, or is Youth great?!"

Kakashi was deathly silent for a few long moments, head turned down toward the ground, face in shadow. He then spoke lowly, "Gai, would you please excuse us? I have something I wish to say to my student in private."

Maito Gai's face lit up like a flashlight, seeing the Power of Youth slowly mending the damaged relationship between a sensei and his wayward student.

"Of course! But I'll be seeking you out later! That tie ends this day, Hatake Kakashi!"

And with that, the mighty Green Beast sped out of sight, internally congratulating himself on a job well done of Youthifying the Unyouthifiable Uchiha Sasuke _and _softening the cool Copy-nin, Hatake Kakashi.

"Sasuke," the grey-head spoke lowly, not looking at the addressed teen.

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei?" Sasuke asked, on edge as he awaited his teacher's reply to his quest for forgiveness.

"I want you to do something for me," Kakashi began, assessing a nearby barrel on the deserted street on which they stood.

"Of course! What is it you wish for me to do, sensei?"

The man tried valiantly to ignore the cringe/shiver of disconcert that flowed through his body at the Uchiha's words. It wouldn't last much longer anyway.

"We're going to…do some…training right now." Internally, he complemented himself on the lie. Considering the boy's newfound similarity to Lee, Kakashi had no doubt that Sasuke would react to the prospect of betterment in a similar fashion as his GSJ twin.

"Really?! Yosh! Kakashi-sensei! I shall make you proud! I shall do my best! Should I fail to do so, I will---"

"Sasuke," the older man interrupted, raising a hand.

"Yes, sensei?"

"Please don't. If you must, just keep it to yourself, but I don't think I can handle hearing you make a self-enforced discipline. I really don't," Kakashi said tiredly, a sigh chasing his words.

"Understood, sensei."

Kakashi walked over to the barrel he had noticed earlier and gestured Sasuke closer.

"We're going to do endurance training today, Sasuke," he said, motioning to the water-filled barrel.

"Yosh, Kakashi-sensei!" Sasuke spoke, looking stoked and ready to take on the world at a moment's notice. Then a look of confusion crossed his far-too bright features. "What does this water barrel have to do with that?"

"Oh it's quite simple," Kakashi said airily, slowly detaching himself from the situation in preparation for what he knew he must do.

It was harsh and painful, but the older man knew it was absolutely necessary. The boy would want this. He would hate what he had become. This would be an act of compassion on Kakashi's part; a final gesture of forgiveness and care for the thoroughly destroyed boy who had once been his prized protégé.

"You're going to hold your breath underwater here," Kakashi gestured to the water barrel, "and I'm going to hold you under the water to push your limits. Even when you begin to struggle for air, you must hold on, because I will not let you up until the time has run out."

Sasuke nodded, eagerness exuding from his movements in sharp sparks. The boy was just revving to go, like a dog antsy for his master's command to sic. It saddened the grey-head to no end.

Watching the dark water, like it were some foe to be stared down, Sasuke asked, "And how long will I be held under?"

Kakashi shrugged and grabbed the Uchiha by the neck, shoving his head into the barrel, ensuring it was completely submerged. "As long as it takes for this to all be over. _For good_," he said quietly, forcing his eyes to stay trained on an arbitrary spot down the road, not wanting the image of his student wearing a Green Spandex Jumpsuit being drowned by his own hand, to be permanently ingrained within his memory.

"It's for the best, Sasuke," he said, holding off tears, ignoring the desperate movements when the Uchiha began struggling. "I'm not disappointed in you. I'm not. You were a great protégé. You just got…lost… Very, _very_ lost." Thinking about his student's more recent action of taking on the Green Beast mantle, he added, "More than once. You have a _terrible_ sense of direction, Sasuke, really. May it be corrected in the next life."

Catching the Copy-nin completely off guard, a pair of _extremely _powerful hands gripped the back of his vest and sent him flying down the street.

Upon righting himself again and regaining his scrambled equilibrium, Kakashi turned about to see who interrupted what he had intended to be the final moments of his student's life.

Who he found was the female of his team, Haruno Sakura. She was pulling Sasuke's now limp form from the barrel in which it half-floated, half-hung, and was quickly checking his vitals, green chakra flowing here and there in resuscitative measures.

"Curse you're inhuman strength, Sakura!" he shouted at the young woman, twenty feet away.

"Stop with the "inhuman strength"!" she yelled back. "You make it sound like I'm some freak of nature! You're my sensei! You're supposed to bolster my confidence, not insult me!" Then coming back to herself, she screamed down the street, "WHAT WERE YOU _DOING_?!?!?!" a definite spike of ire shooting from her quick gaze.

"It's what he would have wanted, Sakura," Kakashi called back, slowly dragging himself to his feet. "You know he would never have wanted to end up like that." He gestured at the motionless male next to the kunoichi.

"So your immediate reaction is to _kill him_?!" she nearly screeched, checking the unresponsive Uchiha's breathing again. "If you want him back to normal, find a way to rehabilitate him! I mean, what's wrong with you?!"

"_Rehabilitation_ is what got him into this state to begin with, Sakura," Kakashi scoffed. "And I've had a _very_ stressful day. You wouldn't _believe _the _things _I've been forced to endure today."

Sakura cast a meaningful glare up at the grey-haired man, though her hands continued their rapid, lifesaving work.

"Okay, so maybe you would," Kakashi ceded, shoulders slouching. "Perhaps I acted to hastily…"

A watery cough sounded from the prone male as two lung-fulls of water came spewing from Sasuke's mouth.

The sensei gave a tired closed-eye smile. "Well, no harm done!"

That earned him another white-hot glare from his female student. "You need help. I'm going to see to it that you get it," she spoke sternly, eyes not wavering from Kakashi's face.

The Copy-nin nodded resignedly, stuffing one hand in his pocket, the other whipping out the love of his life, _Icha Icha Paradise_. Looking at him, one would never think that he had just attempted to murder one of his students.

Sakura shook her head. There was a special ward of the hospital dedicated to people like Hatake Kakashi. The fourth floor, psychiatric ward; and Sakura was certain they had a room just waiting for him. If not, she would _make _room.

With the misplaced water finally free of his lungs, Sasuke managed to clear his bleary eyes and take in his situation. He cast about, quickly taking in his surroundings as he tried to decipher the solution to his predicament: Why was he on the ground with burning lungs and with Sakura kneeling beside him, concern scribbled across her features?

"Sakura-san," he began slowly, his voice raspy from the recent aquatic assault they had endured. "What is going on? Is something wrong?"

"Everything is fine, now, Sasuke-kun," Sakura answered, smiling at the confused teen. "You just almost drowned, is all." She gave the porn-reading man a hard look. "But Kakashi-sensei is _very_ sorry for that, aren't you, sensei?"

The addressed man didn't even look up from his orange hentai material. "Yes. I'm terribly sorry, Sasuke. I pushed you too hard. Training's done for today."

The young male looked crestfallen, having just realized his "failure" to perform up to his sensei's standards. "I am sorry, I have failed you, sensei," he spoke quietly.

Sakura narrowed her eyes on the man across from her, gaze as cold as a nuclear winter. It was an obvious threat, one which Kakashi was not foolish enough to ignore.

"No, no, Sasuke. You did great. Better than most. You definitely passed this training level, that's for sure," Kakashi insisted, eye still trained on the inappropriate material in his hand.

"Really?! Yes!" the teen shouted, leaping to his feet, apparently undaunted by the burning pain assailing his lungs and throat. "What will we do next, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Oh, I haven't thought that far ahead, I'm afraid. You'll have to give me…" he looked up at Sakura in question as he continued, "two days?"

The kunoichi shook her head and gestured her thumb to the sky, indicating a higher value than two days.

"Three days?"

Another jerk of the thumb.

"Four days?"

Another jerk.

"_Five_ days?"

"Try _weeks_," she said, face stony and unyielding.

The sensei shrivelled up inside but otherwise bore his sentence with the quiet acceptance that was his standard.

"Well, I'll just be going now, then," he muttered, slouching off down the street.

"The hospital is the _other _way, sensei," Sakura called after him. "I'm going to be sending a message there, so they know what sort of reception to give you. I expect you to be there already when I check in later this evening."

The grey-head raised a hand in acknowledgement and disappeared in a poof of smoke.

Sakura frowned, wondering if he really would go willingly. Well, she wasn't the Hokage's apprentice for nothing. She would drag him kicking and screaming like a three-year-old brat if she had to.

"Sakura-san," Sasuke called, drawing the kunoichi's attention back to him.

"Thank you," he said, peering intently into her eyes.

Sakura was overcome with an unwanted bout of déjà vu at those words, as another time and another place invaded her perception and brought with it the detestable feelings that made it so painful, yet at the same time, so memorable.

"Sakura-san?"

She shook her head, erasing the vision of a moonlit night to see the young man who stood before her in the mid-afternoon light. She smiled and answered, "I didn't really do much, Sasuke-kun. It was nothing."

"Now you're being modest," Sasuke waved his hand, dismissing her dismissal of the weight of her actions. "You have saved my life. Please allow me to thank you by allowing me the honour of escorting you to dinner?"

The words sounded so alien coming from Sasuke's mouth, though she had imagined them enough times that they ought to be commonplace to her by now. She watched him pensively for a few moments, seeing the well-veiled desperation in his eyes and the anxiousness for a positive answer. And despite the fact that she _knew _this was not the true Sasuke asking her, that the regular Sasuke would have brushed her off soon after she resuscitated him and thought nothing of it, she couldn't help herself.

"Okay," she answered shyly, forcing her smile into a subdued curve of rose lips, rather than the full-blown grin that begged to grace her face.

However, Sasuke employed no such restraint, as he grinned fully at her response, teeth fairly ping!ing like his new green-clad companions' were wont to do.

They made there way down the deserted street, one ignoring the falseness of their company, the other oblivious to the fact that he had spilled one of his more personal and well-kept secrets while under the influence of the "Power of Youth."

* * *

In the shadow of a shop stood a rather forlorn looking creature. Its round eyes followed the slow gait of a pink-haired kunoichi and her dark-haired, green spandex-wearing companion, as they went on their merry, none the wiser to his observation of them. And he could not but feel…jealous. So many things were going well for the Uchiha. Gai-sensei had been praising his advancement all day, especially after their successful "conditioning" of him, and now he had won the company of Sakura-san. Was Sasuke really excelling more in the Way of Youth than he, Rock Lee? 

The question plagued the young man for the rest of the night.

**Guttersnipe's Word: **Holy crap! I can't believe it's been over four months since I updated this thing! I _love_ this fic; I don't know why it's taken me so long to tend to it. (Sigh) That will _never _happen again. I apologize. So, how many of you **hate** me now? I have _never _made characters so OOC before. But it's all for a purpose, trust me, please! Really, it's pretty much the whole premise of the story. And come on! Like you've never wondered what Sasuke would look and act like if he were Youthified! Really, you all should have seen this coming. I don't want any flames because of the OOCness, since I _explicitly_ stated in the forewarning that such would be present. Thanks for reading!


	4. It's Not Easy Being Green

Public Service Announcement

Disclaimer: I do no own _Naruto_. That copyright belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Warning: The following story contains crack! content that may not be appreciated by some readers. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

**Chapter 4: It's Not Easy Being Green (With Envy)**

Lee was depressed.

"Lee" and "depressed" should never be in the same sentence, yet there they were. And he was depressed. _Very_ depressed.

"Excellent, Sasuke! Two hundred more laps around beautiful Konoha and you will have restored your victory over defeat through the Power of Youth!"

"Yosh, Gai-sensei!"

"Sasuke!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Sasuke!"

A blinding sunset and inexplicable ocean view brightened the shadowy forest trail, but its obvious joy was lost on Lee. He was on the outside, in the untransformed area of the woods, lost in shadow, his frame slumping another few degrees than it already was.

It had been like this for the past two weeks. Ever since he and Gai-sensei had put Sasuke through the special Springtime of Youth's Fiery Youthful Light Youthifying System, or SYFYLYS, and Sasuke had been properly inducted into the ranks of the Green Beasts, the Uchiha had been out-Youthing the Rock in every endeavour they undertook. Each self-enforced discipline was completed with more vigour by Sasuke than Lee could do. Each community service task was done with more fire in his eyes than Lee had. He had even taken over writing and directing the PSAs they starred in, going so far as to revamp the set, saying that his "glorious, inspirational flower, Sakura-san" had suggested they change it and he wanted to make her happy.

_He was dating Sakura-san!!!_

How was Lee supposed to feel any Youthful inspiration when his lady love was dating his arch enemy?

And don't even get him started on his Green Spandex Jumpsuits. All of his GSJs had gone missing two weeks ago and he couldn't find a store that sold them. When he asked the shopkeepers, they all laughed at him. He asked Gai-sensei where to find new ones, but the man was always too busy with his new favourite student to answer him. The one he had been wearing the day he discovered the fashion travesty of his missing spandex was ruined in training with Neji the next day. Now, all Lee had to wear was his green spandex shorts and his pink, abdomen-revealing exercise shirt. As Youthful as they were, the pink only served to depress him more, when it usually inspired him, as it reminded him of his fair Sakura-san. But she wasn't his. She was _Sasuke's_.

He had taken everything from him. He ruined his life.

Lee wasn't a vengeful person. But a side of him that he never knew existed was awakening.

Emo had descended upon the Green Beast. And _someone_ had to answer for his personal problems.

* * *

Having just returned from a two week long mission, Neji had no idea what manner of diabolical plan was afoot in Konoha, aside from his own. As such, when he passed by a new electronics shop that had television sets in the window, airing the local station, he was decidedly unprepared for what he saw.

_On the televisions:_

A glaringly garish green set came into view, where a positively beaming Uchiha Sasuke stood (_posed_) next to Gai, as the camera panned in for a close-up and some strange, disorienting intro music played itself out.

"Citizens of Konoha!" Sasuke greeted, with a ping! of his teeth. "The great Gai-sensei and I are here to inform you about the Unyouthful travesty that has imposed itself upon our society." His radiant face suddenly turned overly troubled, as he continued, "I am, of course, speaking of the enslavement and caging of our most valuable natural resource: water." The scene switched to a picture of a case of bottled water.

The scene turned to Gai, who looked every bit as troubled as his new student at the topic at hand. "Every day, thousands of litres of this noble, beautiful, and _free_ staple are taken from its natural habitat and enclosed within clear prisons, in which it is helpless, subjected to the Unyouthful whims of us humans."

"Perhaps the greatest tragedy about it is that this is entirely preventable," Sasuke added, brow furrowed in sorrow and pleading, voice set to rival the most desperate of plights. "The power lies in your hands, Konoha. Do not allow this travesty of Youth to continue, as it leeches its Unyouthfulness into the very fabric of our fair village! Do the right thing, Konoha."

Both Gai and Sasuke took up the Vow of Youth pose, with fists raised and eyes afire as they shouted, "Free the bottled water! Let it flow free, as the river runs wild!"

A monotonous voiceover quickly spoke, "This public service announcement brought to you by FreeBlue ™. Fighting for water rights since the Second Great Ninja War. H2O must freely flow!"

_Back with Neji on the street:_

Neji stared blankly at the screens before him, mind slowly churning, attempting to make sense of what he had just been subjected to. Understanding was long in coming.

"... ... ... ... ... The hell...?"

* * *

After shaking himself into action, Neji had no answers as to why Sasuke would be..._acting_ like one of the freaks they had banded together to eliminate, and so he had decided that hunting down his partner in crime was the only way he was going to be getting anywhere. After a little searching with Byakugan, his quarry was sighted and the Hyuuga took off to confront him.

Now, it was unsettling to see the bright, neon green set of those horrendous PSAs in person. You would have to be colour-blind to appreciate something that badly designed. However, it was even more unsettling to see your like-minded partner in crime do a total one-eighty turnaround, actively involved in said PSAs, and clothed in the vestments of the enemy.

_Fate was obviously drunk when it decided that _this_ was a good idea._

"Uchiha," Neji called out, scowling at the unique sight said man offered. "What the hell's going on?"

"Neji-kun," Sasuke admonished, turning away from the new script he was reading and editing, looking scandalized at his companion's choice of words. "'What the heck' would have sufficed! And in answer to your query, what's going on is Youth's radiant manifestation in Nature's awakening! Take a deep breath and feel it flow through you, Neji-kun! It's the best kind of high and it's safe and free." He flashed a blinding smile at the Hyuuga, causing the other male to blink in both pain and horror.

Shaking his head slightly to dislodge the frozen processes there, Neji stared hard at the..._beaming_ ninja before him. This couldn't be real. There had to be something else to it.

And then it dawned on him. He allowed himself a small, satisfied smirk and said, "You almost had me fooled, Uchiha. I'll admit, even I would never have thought to go this far, joining their ranks to do espionage. This is more depraved than any plan I've had, and I've seriously considered just killing them, so that's got to tell you something." He grinned maliciously. "I know vengeance is your specialty, but this is truly masterful. I mean, you would have to be deeply devoted to the cause to go so far as to dress like..._that_ and act like them too."

Neji's rare complements didn't have the expected effect on Sasuke. The rookie Green Beast was frowning halfway through the Hyuuga's speech, but he waited patiently for the other shinobi to finish, as interrupting would have been terribly rude and Unyouthful. But now he simply had to speak his peace.

"Neji-kun," Sasuke began hesitantly. "I'm afraid I do not understand what you're saying. I can deduce that you have been making references to my newfound Green Beasthood, however this espionage you spoke of is in no way involved. I earned my Green Beast status through hard work and Youth's blessing. I would never jeopardize that for anything. Now, I know you have a Youth deficiency, and so it is difficult for you to comprehend the importance it holds in the lives of Gai-sensei and myself, but you _could_ understand, if you just opened your mind, and more importantly, your _heart_, to the Fire of Youth in those around you." Sasuke's eyes had been growing bigger and moister as he spoke and now he was staring at Neji with puppy eyes that would make a puppy-killer go, "Awww..."

Neji, for his part, froze externally and shuddered uncontrollably internally at the sight. Dear....Fate. Was this really happening? They converted him. They really converted Uchiha Sasuke! Oh, something evil was afoot, Neji could tell. And though a (very large) part of him was fighting a superior smirk and an outright laugh at his sort-of rival's current circumstance, Neji kept his propriety and began figuring what this development would mean to his plans.

_Well, on the plus side, Uchiha is single-handedly destroying Lee's faith in Youth, destroying his hopes of being with Haruno-san and ruining his attempts at betterment by out-performing him. But on the down side, he's basically replaced Lee, allowing Gai to survive and keeping the active Green Beast count at two._

Giving Sasuke a final, disgusted, cursory glance, Neji finished weighing his options and backed away _slowly_.

_Maybe I'll just see how this plays out. Freaking Uchiha..._

* * *

After Neji left the set, looking dazed and confused, the Green Beasts began wrapping up production for the day.

Gai had a feeling their most recent endeavour was going to be their finest and most beneficial to the citizens of Konoha. And with Sasuke's inspired new vision for the PSAs taking them into the very heart of the matters that were affecting Konoha right now, he was more excited about their work than he had ever been. Oh, things were looking up for the Green Beast brotherhood. Yes indeedy.

"Ah, Sasuke. Your complete turnaround from the depressing raincloud that you were to the radiant sunspot that you now are, gives me such inspiration as I had not dreamed possible!" Gai boomed, looking proud as punch upon his new student. "This is the dawning of a new era! Soon, the time of Emo shall fall and give rise to a new age; the Golden Age of Youthful Splendour! The days of the GAYS are upon us, Sasuke!"

"Yosh! Gai-sensei! Viva la GAYS!" the Uchiha shouted, fists pumping in the air as radiant sunsets shone from his glistening eyes.

The taijutsu expert chuckled at the excitement radiating from the younger male. "With my infallible Youthifying program and your unique ability, we can change the world! All we have to do is have you use your Sharingan to project the SYFYLYS experience into other peoples' minds and they'll be aglow with Youth's splendour!"

"Yosh! I am proud and honoured to be part of your noble plan, Gai-sensei!" Sasuke shouted, saluting smartly while staring in awe at his idol.

"Good, good, Sasuke," Gai hummed, nodding slowly with eyes closed and fingers on his chin, as he formulated a plan for their next move.

"Sasuke," the elder Green Beast said, snapping serious eyes on his bubbling protégé. "Are you prepared to carry out your first duty now?"

"Yes! I am prepared, Gai-sensei! Direct me and it shall be done!"

Gai smiled at this, more certain now than ever that the world would be sunshine and rainbows before the week's end. The GAYS would come. Oh, yes it would.

"The first lost soul I want you to guide into the warm bosom of Youth is Hyuuga Neji."

* * *

Lee gasped at the injustice of it all, leaning further into his dark little corner of angst, as he heard his idol declare the impending Youthification of his rival. He couldn't bear the thought of Neji besting him at endeavours of Youth. _No!_ Sasuke was already too much; he could not handle Neji, too.

_My two great rivals besting me at my life's passion... Turns my passion to poison to corrode my darkening soul._

He quickly pulled out his dark green notebook of emo poetry to scribble that thought down.

_Is my soul really nothing more than black lines on a page? How empty my being is, filled with two-dimensional sentiments that no one will ever see._

In his hiding place, just out of sight of Gai and Sasuke's plotting forms, Lee came to a decision.

_None of this would have happened if we had not Youthified Sasuke-kun. This is all because of that. How bad will it be if Neji becomes a Green Beast, too?_

With a determined nod to himself, the ex-Green Beast took off to find a soon-to-be _very_ thankful Hyuuga.

* * *

Neji shuddered, trying to shake off the feeling of thousands of tiny spiders crawling up and down his spine.

Gai was planning to Youthify him.

SHUDDER.

Of all the horrifying things that Fate could have dealt him, _that_ had to be one of the worst.

But, he couldn't curse Fate too harshly at the moment, considering he had just been forewarned of the green psycho's plot, by Lee, no less. A moody, depressed, full-blown emo Lee.

SHUDDER.

As irritating and disturbing as he was in full Green Beast mode, Lee was simply intolerable in _Dark_ Green Beast mode.

Neji and Sasuke's original sabotage plan had involved Lee losing his Green Beast status, leading to Gai's inevitable downfall, as well. But that freaking Uchiha had to go and get himself brainwashed into a Lee replacement. The plan was foiled and things were worse than before, with an insufferable Lee, and Gai's plan for turning everyone gay and giving them syphilis, or something like that.

"I'll keep my women and you can keep you STDs, thank you very much," he muttered to himself.

"What was that, Neji?" Lee asked, deadened eyes watching him with disinterest.

"What's with this gay thing Gai's planning? And the syphilis?"

"Oh, the GAYS," Lee sighed, vacant eyes staring off at a dead tree. _Dead like my soul._ "Gai-sensei and I used to dream of the GAYS. We used to share stories of what it would be like to experience the GAYS for ourselves, to actually live it. That was when I could still dream, before my soul slipped into the eternal slumber of death, never to wake again."

Neji stared at his teammate oddly. "I...didn't need to know that about you and sensei. I... I _seriously_ would have preferred it if you had kept that to yourself."

"Well, Gai-sensei isn't going to keep it to himself. He's going to see to it that the Golden Age of Youthful Splendour visits itself upon our village, by using the Springtime of Youth's Fiery Youthful Light Youthifying System, and when it does, it will be a disaster. And then there will be no stopping it. Once the GAYS takes hold, there's no going back, Neji."

_Golden Age of Youthful... The GAYS. Springtime of Youth's Fiery Youthful Light... SYFYLYS, not syphilis. Ohhh..._ Neji shook his head at the acronyms.

"I'm glad you are warning me about this, Lee. Truly I am," Neji said, still disturbed by the idea of being brainwashed as a Green Beast. "But I have to ask. Why are you telling me? I should think you'd be happy about the...GAYS coming."

"I used to believe so, too," Lee replied, shaking his messy head at his past-self. "I thought spreading Youth's radiant fire to the world was my life's purpose, but I was wrong, Neji. Everything has been falling apart since Sasuke became one of us. I can't... I can't live like this! There can't be more of him! I'll _die_! I'll seriously die! _It. will. kill. me._"

Neji watched Lee for a short moment, considering the situation. On the one hand, Lee was on the verge of quite literally self-destructing, meaning that half of the original plan was complete. Gai could be dealt with in alternative ways if Lee's loss didn't have the effect it would have had in the past. Operation: Die Youth! Just Freaking Die!—he had changed it back to his own title after Sasuke's defection—could still be successful. But, on the other hand, Gai had a very effective plan to destroy everything he was, and it was likely on its way right now. This threat was immediate. He couldn't let it be, and run the risk of being turned into his own enemy. No. The choice was clear.

"We have to re-emo Sasuke."

* * *

Naruto wasn't one to abandon his friends. They could attempt to kill him, betray the village, cause harm to things he valued, but he would never give up on them.

But this... This was _really_ testing his devotion.

"...and I just...never realized how _moving_ that moment was." A few sniffles escaped Sasuke as he dabbed at his watery eyes. He turned an emotion-laden gaze on his companion. "Didn't you think so, too, Naruto-kun?"

"Uh... Well..." the jinchuuriki began slowly, clearly uncomfortable. "You do know _The Notebook_ is a chick-flick, right?"

"Naruto-kun!" Sasuke gasped, admonishment in his eyes. "No movie has a gender stipulation! All may appreciate the heart-moving qualities of a classic love story!"

"But...it's directed at girls, dattebayo"

"Oh, that's just stereotypical talk, there!" Sasuke answered with a 'pshaw.' "Being manly does not mean being misogynistic, friend Naruto."

"I'm not being massage...istic..." He shook his head at his fumbling tongue. "I'm saying it like it is, dattebayo! That's a chick-flick and I'm kind of weirded out that you watched it _willingly_. And then brought it here so that _we_ could watch it together..." He mumbled the last part with a distasteful expression.

"Fair and lovely Sakura-san wanted to watch it. One would do anything for the great _amour de leur vie_, yes?" the Uchiha replied breezily, a permanent smile pressed into his lips.

"What?!" Naruto scrunched his face at the strange words. "Geez, teme. Talk like a human once, would ya?"

"That's French, Naruto-kun. _Le langage de l'amour._ You should try it on your _petite amie_, Hinata-san; women appreciate such gestures, you know."

The blonde's face suddenly seemed drawn, as he shook his head, watching the other male with tired, near-sorrowful eyes. "You know, I'm starting to wish your endless loneliness would overtake you again... I never thought I'd see the day that your repressed, egoistic, pissy, angsty self would be an appealing alternative to something, but here we are."

"You do not like that I am happy?" Sasuke asked, the eternal smile faltering for a moment at such an _Unyouthful_ prospect.

"I-It's not that, teme..." Naruto began awkwardly. He sighed; he couldn't take much more of this... "It's just...you being happy like _this_," he gestured with distaste at his friend's new appearance, "concerns me beyond any level I've ever been concerned at. And that makes you being a pained, lonely orphan a fun alternative to _this_, dattebayo. Uh...not that..._that's_ something to laugh at, or anything."

"It is alright, Naruto-kun," the Uchiha answered, waving the comment off, good-naturedly. "I have learned to appreciate the humorous qualities of life and can now laugh at myself quite readily."

Something in Naruto seemed to snap at the other male's words. He...just couldn't...take it! "No! _No_. Sasuke is _not_ a learner! He's a hard-headed jerk who thinks he knows everything. He certainly would never learn to laugh at himself, dattebayo!" he shouted, shaking an angry finger at the other male.

"But I have learned to—"

"No! No! No!" he cut Sasuke off, shaking his head vigorously, hands on the sides of his face. "You take that back right now, you-you-you _imposter_!"

Sasuke looked hurt, as he tried to explain. "I'm only speaking from the heart, Naruto-kun."

"NO! _YOU HAVE NO HEART!!!_ IMPOSTER! IMPOSTER!" Naruto screamed, running away as fast as his scared little legs could carry him.

* * *

Having run many minutes, blindly chasing a reality in which the nightmare he had just left behind did not exist, Naruto eventually bumped into his other teammate, who was understandably annoyed with being flat-out _decked_ by a screaming, episodic male.

Once Sakura had calmed Naruto down, through the ever-useful implementation of heavy fists to an empty skull, the blonde managed to explain the _horrors_ he had just endured, as they walked along a familiar path, toward the red bridge they used to always meet at for training.

"You can't tell me this doesn't disturb you."

"It doesn't."

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto cried, staring at the girl like she had just blasphemed ramen's name. "He _likes people_ now! What's more disturbing than that? _Nothing!_ Except maybe him smiling at me. Ugh! Sakura-chan! He calls me 'Naruto-kun'! There isn't an insult to be had from the guy! I just..." He trailed off, face becoming complacent. His voice was curiously emotional when he finally said, "I just want _our_ Sasuke back! Sure, he was a teme, but he was _our_ teme! I don't know who this person is! It looks like Sasuke—sort of—and it kind of sounds like Sasuke, but _that_ is _not_ him!"

"People change, Naruto." At the blonde's rising protest, she quickly added, "Now, I admit this is a rather..._shocking_ change, but with our support, he can reach a more _conservative_ medium."

"A 'conservative medium' from _that_ would be getting him to actually wear his normal clothes once a week on Casual Fridays," Naruto grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"If this is the type of person he is now, we should support him in his effort to change."

"Sakura-chan." Naruto looked intently into his teammate's green eyes, face set. "I'd rather have him try to kill me than see him like that. _He'd_ rather I kill him than for him to remain as he is. Kakashi-sensei had the right idea."

Sakura scoffed, her brow furrowing at the memory of their teacher's attempt at murdering their third teammate. "Agreeing with someone who's currently confined to the psych ward of the hospital doesn't really earn your cause points, Naruto."

"I'm telling you, it isn't right—"

Stopping short on his rant, Naruto stared, gaping like a beached fish, at a figure leaning against the railing of the red bridge.

There, dressed in baggy, dark green, _non-spandex_ shorts and shirt, his usually smooth hair ruffled into a dome of spikes, giving him the appearance of having a black cactus on his head, stood a brooding Rock Lee. His entire aura was choking with angst, as he stared, squinty-eyed at the boards beneath his feet, apathy radiating like so much venom from a viper fang.

Naruto was horrified.

Sakura was shocked, but not to the point of catatonia, as Naruto seemed to be, as the boy continued to stare, open-mouthed, at the spectre from his greatest and darkest dreams.

"Lee-san?" Sakura called out quietly, as though fearing she would startle him.

When the addressed male looked up, the blank apathy in his dark eyes nearly drew a flinch out of her, the sense of familiarity was so striking. Oh, she had seen those eyes _many_ times. It was a different face, but the same eyes.

"Lee-san, are you okay?" Sakura continued, watching the male with full-blown worry.

"If drowning in a sea of unending injustice and misery in which my soul decays to dust upon a sacrificial pyre is okay, then, yes, I am fine," he answered in a monotonous, entirely un-Leelike voice.

"Uh... Well... It's a beautiful day, at least... Don't you think?" she asked awkwardly, not knowing where to go after such a bleak response.

"Oh, yes. Very beautiful. Like the light in a person's eyes as their existence is snuffed out—and just as fleeting."

"Wha... Yeah. That's... That's _exactly_ what I...was saying..." She coughed uneasily, glancing about as she formulated words to get past this particular moment.

Thankfully, Naruto managed to get a hold of his faculties and being who he was, leapt into the midst of..._whatever_ it was that Sakura was suffering through with Lee.

"Fuzzy-eyebrows! You look like someone died!" he blurted, staring in wide-eyed awe at this new sight.

"Someone did—_me_. For the death of the soul is the worst death of all."

Naruto frowned. "What?"

"He's talking in emo-tongue now," Sakura half-whispered behind her hand.

He blinked a few times, processing everything in a slow stream. "It's like... It's like Fuzzy-eyebrows and the teme have completely switched places, dattebayo. I expect Fuzzy-eyebrows to go Pissy-avenger on us any moment." A devilish grin quirked his lips, as a Naruto-brand thought came to him. "Hey, Fuzzy-eyebrows! It's up the stream, not across," Naruto shouted, making slashing movements on his forearms.

"Naruto!" Sakura hissed before clobbering the chuckling blonde. "That's not funny!"

"Hai, hai, Sakura-chan! I'm sorry," Naruto quickly mumbled, cradling his swollen skull, while still fighting a grin at the sight of an angsting Lee.

"I'm glad you're all here. It saves me having to seek you out individually," a deep voice spoke from behind them.

Turning, they were greeted with a stern-faced Neji, who was approaching them with a purposeful gait.

"Neji? What're you looking for us for?" Naruto asked, frowning as he cast a look back at Lee.

"I have a proposition for you both that I think we will all benefit from," the older male answered, hiding a grimace at the sight of his teammate's current condition.

"What about?"

"This," he gestured with a distasteful nod in Lee's direction, "and Uchiha. I assume you want him back to normal."

"You would _think_ that, wouldn't you?" Naruto muttered, giving Sakura a look out of the corner of his eye.

She stiffened her posture, but otherwise remained silent.

"Really, I don't need you to do much," Neji explained, eyeing them both carefully. "Naruto, I could use your assistance in restraining Uchiha, and Haruno-san, it would be useful if you were to bring him to our trap. You would be the last on he would suspect."

Sakura shifted uncomfortably under the man's gaze. "And what exactly will you do to him once you have him where you want? This sounds like he's going to wake up in a bathtub of ice, missing a kidney."

"We're simply going to brainwash him back to his usual, _delightful_ self."

"_Brainwash?!_" Her eyes widened, incredulous."You're going to _brainwash_ him?!"

"_Back_," he emphasized. "We're going to brainwash him _back_ to his old self. No harm done. Well..." he shrugged indifferently. "We're choosing the lesser of two evils here."

"Yes," Naruto nodded. "The evil we know and love, not like the bizarre-o evil we're suffering through now, dattebayo."

"But it's still brainwashing!" Sakura insisted, shaking her head at the idea. "I don't feel comfortable partaking in this."

"Gai and Lee brainwashed him to begin with. We'll simply be reversing the process," Neji explained, obviously untroubled by his justification.

"But don't you think he's been damaged enough? Maybe we should give his psyche a rest."

Neji's brow furrowed slightly, as he gave the younger kunoichi a careful look. "Haruno-san, it sounds as though you want him to remain as he is."

"She _does_!" Naruto muttered, eyeing her with a frown.

"I do not!"

"You're totally against fixing him!"

"I don't believe that brainwashing him _again_ is the right course—"

"You just want to keep going on your dates with him."

A sigh shifted through her. "From a medical standpoint—"

"Bah! Save your medical mumbo jumbo!" he cried, waving her words off. "Admit it, Sakura-chan; you're being selfish! I know me and Kakashi-sensei tell you to be selfish once in a while, but now isn't the time to start listening to us! _Now_ is the time to start listening to us, dattebayo! And we're telling you we have to do this!"

"What gives us the right to make this decision for him?" Sakura asked, slightly angry now. "It's not our place to make such life choices for him."

"Who else is there? We're the closest thing to family he's got. That makes it our right—nay! Our _duty_! He can't look out for himself anymore, so now it falls to us, his important people, to look out for him, dattebayo."

"Well, maybe he did choose this for himself."

Naruto gawked at Sakura as though she had just sprouted elephant ears. "What Sasuke are you talking about? 'Cause the one I'm referring to would murder-kill the person he's become right now."

"You don't know that..."

"He gnawed through his restraints twice in his attempts to escape the Youthifying program," Lee spoke up, vapid eyes watching them absently. "And bear in mind, he was _handcuffed_."

Turning back to his teammate, Naruto gave her a meaningful look. "That's desperation, Sakura-chan, dattebayo."

"Indeed," Neji agreed with a small nod.

"Can't you see?" the blonde continued. "He's crying inside, Sakura-chan, dattebayo. Well, he's also crying _outside_, but that just makes him cry inside even harder...as it does me. I am in _severe_ emotional distress here, Sakura-chan! Have some compassion!" he pled, giving his best puppy-eyed look.

"So, your goal of "fixing" Sasuke-kun is for selfish reasons, too!" Sakura exclaimed, vindication overflowing from her as she stared Naruto down. "It's all about_ you_ and not feeling comfortable around him just because he's not who you remember. Hypocrite!"

"It's not even like that, dattebayo! Sakura-chan! Don't go twisting my words!" the male whined. "Yes, I want him back to normal because he creeps me out as he is now, but I also want him back because I know he wants this, too."

"Pretty words, Naruto. But entirely meaningless when backed by hollow intention."

"Hey! I said it's not—"

"Naruto. Haruno-san," Neji interrupted, his eyebrow dancing with a twitch at the pair's argument, which he was certain Naruto was the winner of anyway. "Please consider my proposal. Bear in mind, this will happen with or without your aid. I simply thought that, as Uchiha's comrades, you two would want to be informed and involved in his rehabilitation. Your involvement would be beneficial to us, but it is not necessary." Turning to go, he called back, "If you decide you want to partake, come speak with me before seven this evening."

Casting each other irritated glances, the two teammates turned their separate ways and stalked off.

* * *

Once again, Naruto and Sakura found themselves in Ichiraku Ramen Bar, nursing a bowl of ramen each. After much coaxing, Naruto had convinced the girl to accompany him, so long as he paid for her meal. Knowing Naruto as she did, Sakura was certain the boy had an agenda on the run. Just what it could be, she had yet to figure out, when the topic of their animosity appeared on the TV set in the corner.

_On the television:_

Amidst the great trees of Konoha's forest, Sasuke stood, a small, furry creature sitting on his shoulder. Looking into the camera, face serious, he began whatever "public education" message he and Gai had deemed necessary for the audience to endure this time.

"The squirrel is nature's most noble and most Youthful creature," Sasuke spoke, drawing attention to the critter on his shoulder as it made dust of a pine cone. "But its existence has been threatened over the past few years with the rising prevalence of 'squirrel bombs.'" He used air quotes on the new term, before his brow became more furrowed with concern, as he continued. "These Unyouthful explosives involve attaching exploding notes to an innocent squirrel and sending them into enemy territory." He shook his head, casting a pitying look upon the small rodent nearby. "Unthinkable, I know. But this is unfortunately the reality for many of our fluffy forest friends.

With a showy flourish, he pointed at the camera and shouted, "But you can help, Konoha! Should you see a squirrel emitting that tell-tale smoke and spark, use your shinobi talents and take action! Remove the note before it can detonate. Not only will you be saving yourself much trouble and damage, but you will also be saving our noble friend—the squirrel." A close-up of the squirrel filled the screen, before panning back to show both the Uchiha and his new friend.

"So be Youthful, Konoha. Be squirrel smart."

Both squirrel and Sasuke gave the Good Guy pose, complete with ping!ing smiles.

_Back in Ichiraku Ramen Bar:_

"_That's_ alright with you?! _That_?" Naruto asked, pointing a damning finger at the TV screen.

Sakura sighed, shifting uncomfortably. Reluctantly, she answered, "...No, but—"

"Sasuke wouldn't want this!" he insisted, shaking his head in exasperation. "The idea of this happening to him is enough to keep me laughing for a month, but the reality of it is just _wrong_! When Sasuke was sentenced to community service with Super-eyebrows-sensei, I thought it'd be great if he became like the Green Beasts. _You_ were the one who was concerned about something like this happening." He paused a moment, thinking, and then continued. "If I thought for one moment that he wanted to be this way, I'd leave it be and learn to laugh at it all while I go home and cry over the death of a friend. But I know him better than that. And so do you."

He gave a sympathetic smile. "I get why you're so ready to let this be as it is. But that's just not him. And I know better than anyone that you don't want anyone but Sasuke. Even if he goes back to disregarding you, don't you want whatever he chooses to be _his_ decisions, _his_ actions?"

A mute sigh shifted through Sakura's frame, deflating her. "I just don't understand why the thing I want most can only exist if he's not himself," she spoke quietly, eyes cast to the ground.

Blue eyes watched her for a few moments, seeing more than she could. A wide grin split his face as he said, "Just because his actions are un-Sasukelike doesn't mean his emotions are."

Puzzled, she looked up to be met with smiling blue eyes and a goofy, confident grin.

"Sasuke's an emotional retard; the Green Beasts are emotional aficionados. Who's to say they didn't just change him into someone who emotes rather than bottles it up. It doesn't mean his feelings are fake; he's just finally showing them, which we're not used to."

She knew what he was doing; Sakura recognized an act of pity when she saw one. But he was trying to make her feel better and she didn't have the heart to tell him that he had failed. So, she lied with a smile, as she had on so many occasions before, and they went back to their cold ramen, ignoring each others' insincerity.

* * *

"Sasuke-kun."

The addressed male stopped in his tracks at the sound of _that _voice saying his name.

Whirling around with a flourish, he exclaimed, "Sakura-san! My Youthful flower of love and beauty! How are you this fine afternoon?"

Sakura kept her smile frozen in place on her face, valiantly resisting the frown of disconcert that wanted to show there instead.

"_That's not Sasuke, Sakura-chan," _Naruto had told her, his face a serious mask. _"I am _terrified_ of whatever the heck he is! I say we cooperate with Neji and Fuzzy-eyebrows and we get the teme back!"_

Yes. She would do as Neji had requested a half hour ago. She would bring Sasuke to them, where they would be prepared to put the Uchiha back together again.

_Goodbye dates with Sasuke-kun. Hello being ignored...again._

"I'm good, Sasuke-kun. I was actually wondering if you would come with me somewhere..."

* * *

"Sakura-san. This is the set of Youth Enterprises' PSA commercials. What are we doing here?" Sasuke asked, face all innocent confusion.

An obnoxiously bright figure leapt out of the darkened doorway behind them and tackled Sasuke to the ground.

"I got him! Quick, Neji!" Naruto shouted putting all his strength into restraining the stunned nin.

"Naruto-kun?! What—?" Sasuke began to protest.

He was cut off when a beige blur materialized out of the shadows. In a disorienting array of jabs, the Hyuuga closed the tenketsu in the felled shinobi. Then, with Naruto's help, he dragged Sasuke over to a chair surrounded by loudspeakers and large television screens.

Once he was strapped into the chair, they stepped back. "What's going on? What are you doing to me?" Sasuke demanded, pulling against the restraints. He turned wide eyes on Sakura, betrayal in his gaze. "Sakura-san... Why are you doing this to me?"

Before she could say anything, Neji shooed both Sakura and Naruto out of the room. Before closing the door behind him, his low voice called back, "The rest is up to you, Lee."

Sasuke was left in silence for a short moment, wherein he took stock of his situation. But before he could think too much on the betrayal of his Sakura-san and dear friend, Naruto-kun, a lone figure stepped into the small circle of light that illuminated Sasuke's place of detention.

The original second Green Beast stood before him, appearing as haggard as a man being dogged by demons. His eyes were wild with desperation and vindication as he raised a hand holding a remote control.

"Lee-kun!" Sasuke said, trepidation in his voice. "What's going on?"

"I'm putting an end to this, Sasuke. I'm putting an end to _you_," the other male rasped, expressing more passion in those two sentences than he had in the past two weeks.

"Wait! What are—?"

"We'll both be fine after this," Lee said, voice choked with emotional relief. Then he hit the remote.

* * *

After struggling through a viscous haze within his confused mind, Sasuke managed to crack his eyes open. His brain protested as the incessant pounding within his skull increased its tempo at the movement, but he had to know where the heck he was and what had happened to him.

He sat up and took in his surroundings, seeing the darkened redesigned set for their PSAs. The set _he_ had designed—

Wait. What?

_He_ designed it? Why would he…?

Sasuke's eyes widened slowly, the horror of the past few weeks flooding his mind. He looked down at himself and nearly choked on his own tongue at the sight of green spandex.

"Oh…_hell_."

**Guttersnipe's Word:** The next chapter is the last one, peeps! And I am stoked about it. Please drop a review! Thanks! Oh, and, I did not like _The Notebook_, which is why I had Sasuke like it enough to cry when watching it. Yeah. (Let the hate come pouring in!) Everyone I've told that to has called me heartless. I'm not a chick-flick kind of girl. Nope.


	5. Payback Can't Be Likened to a Female Dog

Public Service Announcement

Disclaimer: I do not own _Naruto_. That copyright belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Warning: The following story contains crack! content that may not be appreciated by some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

**Chapter 5: Payback Cannot Be Likened to a Female Dog...Perhaps a Rabid Ferret Is More Apt...**

A pall of limitless rage was stifling Konoha to the point of near-suffocation. The source was not immediately apparent. All that the villagers knew of him was that he preferred the shadows to the lit streets. They never saw him; they only _felt_ his presence, oppressive and oh so inky dark—the shadows might as well have been lamplight in comparison.

A few villagers closed their shutters and drew their curtains as the presence passed by slowly, his movement lacking the urgency that one would expect to follow such violent intention.

Such ease coupled with such raw malevolence could only mean one thing—this spectre was on the prowl, stalking its prey, _knowing_ the quarry was already his to devour.

* * *

In the darkened training grounds, a tall figure was beating the ever-living out of an army of training dummies, moving so quickly you needed to have very special eyes to see him.

Lucky for the hunter, he did in fact possess such eyes. And they were glued to the hardworking shinobi in the clearing, tomoes spinning like electrons about a nucleus. The darkness hid the near-ravenous edge they held, belying the vicious rage he felt within.

Despair. He wanted to make this man feel pure despair. To crush his spirit—destroy everything that he was and ever had been—that was his sole purpose. He would not rest until this man ceased to exist as himself and became something that was anathema to him.

Sasuke would repay Maito Gai for _all_ that he had done for him.

Still dressed in the _revolting_ green spandex Gai had come to expect on Sasuke, he would be able to approach the taijutsu expert with no need for subterfuge. The man would readily look into his eyes, completely unafraid of the weapons he would be staring down.

And then Sasuke would _break_ him.

Steeling himself, the Uchiha readied the appropriate dialogue he would need to utilize in order not to spark Gai's suspicions. It would be nigh impossible to force such words from his mouth under any other circumstance, but he would do whatever was necessary to take this freak show down.

With one final breath, he leapt into the clearing, emoting as much as his repressed self could manage, hoping against hope that Gai wouldn't notice the lacking facial expressions until it was too late.

"Gai-sensei!" Sasuke shouted, drawing the older male's attention.

"Wha—? Sasuke?" Gai stopped mid-kick, looking surprised by his new student's sudden appearance. The boy seemed...flustered? Excited, but also troubled? Hmmm... Maybe he was just constipated. It was hard to tell; the man's expression was so...odd. "What has your blood boiling at this hour, Sasuke?" Gai boomed, setting his arms akimbo. "By your facial expression, I'd say you're...troubled?"

"Ah... Yes, Gai-sensei. I am...troubled," Sasuke responded awkwardly, nearly choking on the word 'sensei'. _Crap! He knows something's off because of my expression. Now I have no choice but to go along with this._

"Well, tell me all about it. I could use a Youth refresher, anyway." Gai walked over to his gear, grabbed a water bottle and took a swig.

Letting out a silent sigh of relief, Sasuke walked over to his accursed supervisor, angling for the best spot to catch his direct line of sight. He wanted this to go off without a hitch.

"Sasuke?" Gai called, eyeing the youth curiously, concern showing in his rumpled brow.

He was becoming suspicious! Sasuke had to make up a lie quick!

"Well...it's about Lee...-kun," he choked out, gagging on the honorific.

"Oh?" The elder shinobi frowned. "You know, I haven't seen much of him recently. I've grown concerned about that. Have you seen him?"

"Yes, Gai-sensei. I saw him today, actually," he replied, shifting as surreptitiously as possible, trying to catch the Green Beast's eye. Since when _didn't_ Gai make eye contact?! How frustrating...

"Really? How is he?" The Maito snapped his eyes on Sasuke's, his look intense.

_Now's my chance!_

"I think I may have alienated him with all the attention I've devoted to you these past couple weeks," he continued, eyes shifting off to the distance before Sasuke could activate his Sharingan.

_Look at me, you freak of nature._

Realizing that he really was going to have to pull out all the stops if he wanted to trap Gai in his ocular net, Sasuke dug deep and searched his soul for whatever spare drops of emotional moisture he could find and willed them to well up in his eyes. _It can't be that hard to cry; the dobe and Sakura do it all the time. And up until a couple hours ago, I was crying every five minutes, so I know it's possible for me..._ Slowly, ever so slowly, Sasuke began to feel a slight prickling in his eyes. A few moments later, his vision blurred. _Yes! I am a _god_ of false emotion!_

"I... I fear that may be the case...Gai-sensei," Sasuke spoke quietly, willing his voice to quiver at the end.

Hearing the emotion in his student's words, Gai looked over at the male, only to find tear-filled eyes staring back at him. Such a pure display of feeling! It was as inspiring as it was saddening, making Gai a well of conflicting emotion. For this wayward youth to have recanted his blasphemous, emo tendencies and have converted to the gloriousness of Youth; it truly was a miracle.

Having caught Gai's gaze with his crocodile tears, Sasuke seized the moment. A second later, and Gai was no longer staring at teary, slate grey eyes, but was caught in the pull of spinning red ones.

"Sasuke?! What are you doing?!" Gai asked, shocked at the offensive move. He averted his eyes, but realized it was too late when he saw his wooded surroundings begin to shift and melt into nothingness.

Casting a quick look back at the Uchiha, he was met with not a trace of positive emotion. The tears were gone and nothing but unadulterated vindication remained.

"What are you doing, Sasuke?" Gai repeated, standing straight and unafraid. He was a manly man! Friend or foe, he held himself in the same manner, strong and Youthful forever (insert Manly Man pose here)!

"I'm just testing your plan of using my eyes to brainwash people," Sasuke answered easily, a dark grin twisting his lips. "I want to see just how effective it can be."

A wave of understanding swept through his mind. "Your Youthification wore off?"

"More like someone reversed it."

"Who?"

"Like I said, I talked with Lee earlier today."

Gai's eyebrows shot straight up. "Lee?! Why would Lee—"

"It seems he took a trip down Emo Road after you messed with my head and decided that he liked things the way they had been before and took it upon himself to fix me," Sasuke explained, clearly enjoying the heart-crushing realization the other man was experiencing. "That is the one and only reason I won't be paying him a visit after I'm done with you."

"Lee..." Gai mumbled, looking down at his feet. "You lost your faith in Youth?"

"You'll be experiencing the same when I'm done with you."

Shocked, round eyes snapped up to stare incredulously at narrowed red ones. "You wouldn't..."

"I would," Sasuke retorted. "And I _will_. I have vengeful tendencies, you know."

"Now, Sasuke, don't you think this is a bit much—"

"A bit much?!" he interrupted, voice shooting up an octave. "You turned me into a clone of _you_! There is no government sanctioned punishment strong enough to properly punish _that_ crime!"

"You're being a little melodramatic," Gai muttered, sighing at the other ninja's outburst.

"I'm wearing spandex." A long pause followed those words as the two stared back at each other. "I don't even have to say anything else," Sasuke huffed, bunched the fabric in question in a fist. "This is a heinous enough crime as it is."

"Oh? And your Sound purple rope bow belt was _so_ stylish," the Green Beast commented, rolling his eyes.

"It was only a belt!" Sasuke shot back, shaking his head. "It kept my pants up, which justified its existence! That is a very important function, _especially_ in Sound." He shuddered lightly. "But there is no excuse for _this_!" He gestured violently at the green spandex that clung to him like a second skin.

"It keeps you clothed!"

"No, _clothes_ keep me clothed!" Sasuke insisted, shaking his head. "_This_ keeps me deluded, disturbing, and a virgin!"

"Oh, it does not!" Gai scoffed, waving the assertions off.

"Have you ever looked in a mirror?"

"Mirrors are for weak men who need reflections of themselves to reaffirm their existence," Gai answered, finger raised in a lecturing pose.

"_Or_ they're for people who don't want to scar others with their garish appearance."

The sensei quirked an eyebrow at this. "And you think _you_ don't scar people with your constant scowling and all-around emoness?"

"For the last time, I'm not emo!" the Uchiha muttered, frowning at the term. "I have legitimate reasons for being the way I am. People who are emo don't."

"But you don't _have_ to be like that, even if you do have legitimate reasons," Gai insisted.

Sasuke cast a blank look at his superior. "I'd rather be depressed and troubled than bouncing around in green spandex like a retard on crack."

Silence fell on the two as they eyed each other, measuring the situation.

"It would seem that we are at an impasse," Gai said, straightening his shoulders even more.

"Indeed," Sasuke agreed, remaining still.

"You'll never break me, Uchiha. I am a devoted follower of Youth."

"And I was a devoted follower of being 'Unyouthful'. All can be undone," he murmured darkly.

In a sudden flash, Gai's surroundings changed and he was delivered to a world that even his darkest of dreams had never conjured. A world full of angst and emo. A world with no spandex, green or otherwise. A world where spontaneous sunsets, manly tears, and cute little baby elephants in the forest did not exist. A world without Youth.

* * *

Neji was ready to celebrate. Operation: Die Youth! Just Freaking Die! was a success, and he was feeling pretty darn good about it.

Okay, so Lee was now back to his usual Green Beast self, but Gai was as good as dead, having been completely emoed by Sasuke. That was good enough. The Hyuuga/Uchiha alliance had proven itself to be a formidable opponent to Youth. Yes. Victory was theirs.

Of course, now he had to suffer through Lee's constant wailing and pleading to Youth's power to "save Gai-sensei from the evil Unyouthfulness of the emo demon that has stolen his soul." Yeah. That was freaking annoying.

But other than that, life was golden. Life was golden, indeed.

Next to him, Tenten twitched.

"I can't take this anymore," she muttered, eyeing Lee with a murderous look. "Either you put an end to this, or I will."

Watching her for a moment, Neji considered a new thought that had just sprung to life in his twisted mind. Deciding it was worth a shot, he said, "What do you think of putting an end to it by destroying his will to live?"

The Weapons Mistress gave him a strange look. "Are you suggesting we traumatize him mentally so that he will stop annoying us?"

"Yes," was Neji's blunt answer, completely unashamed. "I will understand if you are not comfortable with such an approach—"

"No. I'm game," she said easily, face serious.

"Very well then," Neji agreed, nodding at his new partner in crime. "Then let us commence Operation: Kill Lee So Dead Even Maggots Can't Live In His Corpse!"

Tenten cringed at the name. "That's a terrible name for an operation, Neji," she muttered in distaste.

"Tch. You sound just like Uchiha," he huffed.

"What?"

"Nevermind."

* * *

"UCHIHA!!! Was I not _kind_?! Was I not lenient?! Was I not a freaking god of benevolence and forgiveness when I sentenced you?! And this! This is how you act?!" Tsunade was screaming at the top of her lungs, face red and lungs puffing in her rage.

Most of the room's other occupants were cringing as the Hokage boomed and spittle flew. Only the one who was the focus of her anger remained stoic.

"Tsunade-sama, your blood-pressure—" Shizune began before being cut-off.

"Oh, screw my blood-pressure!" Tsunade snapped, shoving some hated paperwork away from before her.

"Tsunade-sama!" her assistant admonished, nudging the papers forward once again.

"Fine! Where's my sake?!" She began shuffling through the parchment, seeking her beloved alcohol. "That'll calm me right down."

"Tsunade-sama!"

"I get it, Shizune!" the Sannin shouted, irritation and anger radiating from her being in oppressive waves. "Now bring me my freaking sake!"

The other kunoichi simply couldn't handle the pressure and was about to scurry away and do as she was told, when Sakura stepped up and said, "No."

"Oh, you're going to nag me now, too?" she nearly growled, her stifling aura not fading in the slightest. "I'll have my sake."

"Not right now, you won't," Sakura insisted, shaking her head and crossing her arms. "The matter at hand doesn't require you to be drunk of your—"

"Alright, alright," Tsunade ceded, scowling at the thought of talking to the Uchiha while sober. Oh lordy... "She just had to get a backbone," she muttered under her breath.

Turning her rather irritated attention to the male in question, the Hokage continued her initial rant. "Uchiha! You little brat! Do have any idea how royally you have screwed yourself over this time?!"

Sasuke scoffed, clearly unrepentant for his crimes. "Did you _see _what he did to me? He freaking _brainwashed _me! That's illegal! He should be incarcerated."

"Yes, it was illegal," Tsunade agreed, before narrowing her eyes on the prisoner. "But that did not give you the right to torture him with your Sharingan! He's in the psych ward of the hospital right now, drugged and restrained, lest he try to hurt himself again, screaming something like, "Youth is dead! Let me join it!""

A smirk slid over Sasuke's lips at the image Tsunade's words had painted.

"This isn't a particularly funny situation, Uchiha!"

He snapped his eyes up to meet her stern gaze. "What? So, I was supposed to leave him to be dealt with by _you_, who would probably let him off with a little community service, which to him would be like a _reward_?" He scoffed at the idea. "I don't think so."

"Are you saying I'm too lenient in my judgements, Uchiha? Because if that's the case, I can _easily _bump _yours _up to a whole other level of pain!" the Godaime hissed, the weight of her threat hanging from every word.

Sasuke seemed unfazed, looking as smug and unruffled as ever. "Tch. I told you, on the day you sentenced me, that _nothing _could be worse than being stuck with Gai for five months."

"And then _I _reminded _you _that there _was _in fact something worse than Maito Gai's supervision: _fan-girls_."

Shaking his head, he threw up his hands and said, "I don't even care anymore. Do what you will. I'll take the fan-girls over that_freak_ any day."

A small, almost cruel smile quirked Tsunade's lips before she turned her attention to the male to the left of the prisoner. "Naruto."

Snapping his head up, the blonde answered, "Yeah, baa-chan?"

Tsunade covered her pulsing forehead vein with a hand and said, "I want you to roundup all of Uchiha's fan-girls. Tell them that they are getting their wish today, and for the next _five months_." When Sasuke's eyes widened ever so slightly in minor confusion, she explained, "Oh yes; you're punishment is starting over, Uchiha."

In turn, he simply let out a "tch" and turned his head away in that final way of his.

"Uhhhh…" Naruto hummed, his face pinched in clear emotional distress, as he seemed torn between two unpleasant choices.

"What? Did you not understand me?" Tsunade snapped, glaring at her impertinent subordinate. "Go get them now! I am the Hokage! Your loyalty is to _me _first, not the ingrate!"

"It's not that, baa-chan," he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'd _love _to see the teme get tortured by his obviously blind fan-girls."

Said teme cast a heavy glower in the blonde's direction, darts of hate shooting from his eyes.

Unfortunately, Naruto seemed to be protected by an invisible anti-dart of hate shield, as the jinchuuriki continued breathing and _living _as usual.

"Then go get them!" Tsunade bellowed, while searching under some papers for a bottle of her precious sake, as though one could have been hiding beneath the two papers she now held up.

"It's just that…" Naruto continued to explain hesitantly. "There are no more, dattebayo!"

She paused in her fruitless search for a moment, watching the young male with shrewd eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, the fan-girls are no more."

"And how did this happen?"

"Pfft." Naruto rolled his eyes at the question. "Did you _see _Sasuke-teme in full Green Beast ensemble? Hah! _I _wanted to run away screaming, except I was too busy being glued to my spot, laughing my head off, dattebayo!" He paused, face losing its smile as he added, "Seriously, baa-chan or Shizune-nee-chan or Sakura-chan, I need one of you to check the tendons or vertebrae in my neck, because they _really _don't feel right."

Ignoring the boy's medical plight, the Godaime leaned back in her seat and mulled over the new information. "So, there are _no _fan-girls to have torture Uchiha?"

"Yeah! How many times do I gotta tell you, dattebayo?!" the jinchuuriki whined. "He was wearing _green spandex_! They ran for the hills!" He seemed to ponder a thought for a moment before adding, "Though some _did _like how the spandex accentuated his butt and package—"

"Dobe!" Sasuke shouted, sputtering at his rival's words as a very unwanted blush began invading his cheeks.

"What?! It wasn't _me_! It was _them_!" Naruto defended shrilly. "I just had the misfortune of overhearing them talk about it. Ugh! Let me tell you, listening to girls talk about the apparent firmness of a guy's butt and—"

"STOP TALKING, USURATONKACHI!"

"It wasn't _me _saying it, Sasuke-teme! It was the fan-girls!"

"Well you don't need to repeat it!"

"Hey!" Naruto held up a finger, put a hand on his hip, and stared straight into Sasuke's eyes, clearly making a point. "I _guarantee _that I have been _far _more scarred by this experience than you, teme!"

Meanwhile, Sakura, Shizune, and Tsunade had been snickering at the embarrassing situation, while Kakashi just closed his eyes and shook his head, though a smile lay hidden beneath his mask.

Regaining her composure, Tsunade levelled Naruto with another of her trademark stern gazes.

"So, you are _absolutely _certain that _all _of the fan-girls have lost interest?" she clarified. "There isn't a diehard faction somewhere that we could draft?"

"Nope; they're all gone," the blonde answered easily, rocking on his heels. "At first, they went after Fuzzy-eyebrows during his short emo phase, but then they must have realized that his eyebrows might eat them, so they turned to the Hyuuga side, 'cause White-eyes is being stalked and gang-molested by a bunch of rabid fan-girls basically twenty-four-seven. And Kiba, for some reason..." He frowned at the thought. "But like I said, they're all blind, anyhow."

"Crap!" Tsunade muttered under her breath.

"Well, it looks like the fan-girl punishment is out of the question, then," Sasuke intoned blandly.

"I can always just toss you in jail, Uchiha."

"Even better," he replied smoothly. "In fact, I recall wishing for _that _over the community service with Gai."

Tsunade grumbled under her breath, checking under those same two papers again, _just in case _a bottle of sake _happened _to roll under them within the past five minutes, while she sat at her desk with the papers in perfect view. Desperation is a sad, _sad _thing.

"If I may make a suggestion, Tsunade-sama?" Kakashi spoke up, hiding his porn for the token five minutes a day he had to do so, to rest his book-reading hand and arm.

Shifting her attention to the Copy-nin, she said, "Yes. What is it, Kakashi?"

"Well, I believe I can find you _one _fan-girl to carry out the punishment on Sasuke," he explained.

The Godaime seemed pleased by that news, as she stopped her sake search. "Really? Well, find her then!"

"Tsunade-sama," Kakashi continued, his voice completely void of any tells as to what his intentions were. "If I direct you to this girl, will you guarantee that she will be the one to carry out the rest of Sasuke's sentence and no others will be added to the roster if they pop up?"

It was a strange request, almost pointless. But she had no reason not to agree. "Sure. Yes."

Kakashi gave a closed-eye smile as he stepped to the side and pushed one confused pink-haired kunoichi toward the equally puzzled Godaime.

"Sakura? You want Sakura to—"

"Kaka-sensei!" Naruto screeched. "Sakura-chan isn't the teme's fan-girl anymore! Right, Sakura-chan?"

"Oh, I guarantee you, Naruto," Kakashi began, as he nudged the dazed girl closer to a _very _silent ex-avenger, "that Sakura is most _definitely _a fan of Sasuke's. I mean, she still dated him in mini-Gai form. _That's _devotion!" The others nodded in agreement. "And since she _is _a fan, and we've all been told she's a girl, so, barring some unforeseen cross dressing on Sakura's part, she _is _a fan-girl and must, by the Hokage's _word_," he cast a look at Tsunade, "carry out the remainder of Sasuke's punishment," the masked man finished, with another trademark smile.

"Ehhh?!" Naruto cried. He then narrowed his eyes, all suspicion radiating from his concentrating face. "Are you trying to be tricky, Kaka-sensei? This is your seeing underneath the underneath stuff again, isn't it?"

"No, Naruto," Tsunade sighed, casting a rueful look at the copy-nin. "He's already finished his 'tricky stuff'. This is the result of failing to see underneath the underneath." She huffed slightly, casting one last forlorn look about for her long-lost sake. Giving up, she eyed the stoic and extremely silent ex-missing-nin and then her own apprentice. Both were speechless, and judging by the full-blown blush on Sakura's face and the more conservative, almost nonexistent flush on Sasuke's cheeks, they were silent for the same reasons.

The Hokage gave another long-suffering sigh. "Fine," she muttered, waving her hand dismissively while leaning back in her chair. "Sakura," she called, snapping the addressed girl out of her stupor. "I release Uchiha to your custody, effective immediately. From the hours of oh-five hundred to twenty hundred, he is yours. He is not to leave your company. He must do as you order. He is _not _allowed to refuse nor argue about it," she spoke sternly, giving Sasuke a pointed look, though curiously, he did not snort or retort, like usual. "This arrangement will last until the end of his five month probationary interim. You may go."

The ninja shuffled out the door, Naruto loudly requesting all manner of outrageous orders for Sakura to give Sasuke—"He has to pay for ramen every day! Oh, oh! And he has to shave his head! No! He has to dye his hair orange! And the only pants he can wear are hot pants, otherwise he has to wear a frilly dress! Oh, and he must address me as Naruto-sama—No! Ultimate Ninja-sama—No! Your Highness—No! Hokage of the World-sama! And he has to end everything he says to me with, "You pwn all, Hokage of the World-sama.""—Sakura saying no to every request—"I'm not telling him to call you that! It would annoy me hearing that every day!"—and Sasuke scowling viciously at the blonde, thankful that Sakura denied the loud male's every suggestion.

Watching them disappear out the door, noting the total lack of anger or irritation in Sasuke's face at being sentenced to basically be Sakura's house pet, Tsunade snorted quietly. "I swear, soon we'll be _paying _shinobi to go missing-nin."

* * *

On the walk home from the market a couple weeks later, Sasuke was mulling over a thought that had been plaguing him since his sentencing in the Hokage's office. It had to do with that embarrassing comment Naruto had insisted on sharing with everyone, but it had gotten him thinking and wondering, with some discomfort, about something. And after spending a few weeks in close contact with the target of his question, he decided to finally ask it.

"Sakura..." he began hesitantly, searching for the words, willing himself to say them. "You...weren't one of those girls who..._liked_ how the spandex..._showed_ things, were you?" A blush was attempting to commandeer his complexion, but he was fighting it with every ounce of willpower he possessed, as he feigned nonchalance by staring at the houses they were slowly passing. It was a valid question; she had dated him while he had _lived_ in that getup.

"Hm?" Sakura's head snapped about to look at her man-slave, as Ino called him. Shaking her head when her eyes strayed down his back and below his waistline, she answered, _Noo_," shaking her head innocently.

A wave of relief washed through Sasuke, reassuring him and causing him to relax a bit more.

When he wasn't looking, she thought more about it before reluctantly nodding to herself. _Yes._

"Good. I was...concerned for awhile about that, wondering if you were going to force me to wear it again," he said, staring ahead, clearly unaware of what he had just done, of the seed that had just been planted.

She paused a second. _Force him to wear it...?_ She shook her head at the thought.

_Then again..._ Her eyes strayed south a second time.

"Was it really that bad?" she asked nonchalantly.

He gave her a strange look. "You've seen that thing. It's disgusting. It's clingy. You look like a giant green blob in it."

"What if it was only, say, shorts, and they were a different colour?" she spoke innocently, purposely not meeting his questioning eyes when he turned to look at her, choosing to stare down the street.

A chill ran down Sasuke's spine. He had a feeling something had just gone wrong here, but he wasn't entirely sure what. "Well," he began hesitantly, trying to answer the question, missing its meaning. "Not being completely covered by spandex would be better. And a different colour would be less gaudy, I suppose—" He stopped abruptly, turning to stare at Sakura with accusing eyes. "Oh, no. _No_. You're not..."

The kunoichi ignored the male, continuing her trek down the street toward her house, a falsely innocent smile on her lips.

"Sakura! You are _not_ thinking about making me—"

"My ice cream is going to melt if you don't hurry up, Sasuke-kun!" she interrupted, not looking back. A just plain evil smirk twisted her lips as she added, "I wasn't planning on forcing you to wear any spandex, but I might reconsider if that Rocky Road turns into Rocky River."

Sasuke was caught up beside her in a flash, grumbling under his breath, scowling at her from the corner of his eye.

"Displaying such an unpleasant attitude may also force me to reconsider that spandex idea," she commented, smiling widely when his muttering stopped and his scowl disappeared. Oh, she could get used to this.

_It's only five months. It's only five months, _Sasuke found himself repeating over and over in his mind, as he schooled his face into a more pleasant expression. As long as he wasn't forced into spandex again, he would do anything. _Anything_. And by the look on her face, Sakura knew it too, which meant only one thing for Sasuke: He was doomed.

Indeed, his torture had only just begun.

**The End**

**Guttersnipe's Word:** Oh my goodness! It's over!!! YAYS! This is the second multi-chapter story that I've completed. Whoot! Though, I am mildly saddened that it's over. (sigh) No more torturing Sasuke with Gai and Lee's oddities... Whatever shall I do with myself?

Anyway, please review one last time for this fic! Oh, how depressing did that sound? But yes, please do! And a big **THANK YOU** goes out to all of those who have supported this story through reviewing and favouriting it. It's greatly appreciated!

Later!


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